In the early 1980s, Poland is in a state of emergency. The country’s democracy movement, represented by the free Solidarność trade union, is to be suppressed. To this end, President Wojciech Jaruzelski declares martial law on 13 December 1981. In collusion with the Soviet Union a threatening scenario is staged to justify the “stan wojenny”. As a result, Western nations like Great Britain and the USA impose economic sanctions on the Eastern Bloc state. This produces a complex field of tension in which the Polish population are confronted with existential shortages on the one hand but continue their struggle underground on the other – despite curfews, telephone surveillance and a media system controlled by the military.
In his found footage film, Tomasz Wolski brings the explosive, the everyday and the iconic together to provide an insight into a situation that is as absurd as it is dangerous. The extremely dynamic (and musical) montage illustrates the rapid and convoluted succession of events while at the same time intervening through comments, quite often with a notable sense of humour, for example, when Wolski helps a British news correspondent not always on top of events to a bit of retroactive glory: “Most fundamental is the … Hang on, sorry, sorry, could you … Photography and filming will be widely controlled …”

The sea on whose shore Weronika Szyma has set her film is a dense, pulsating blue. The beach and the family who are staying there, meanwhile, are limited to delicate black and white line drawings. Their minimalism makes the blue stand out all the more enchantingly: Sometimes represented as a horizontal strip that promises freedom but also fuels insecurity. Sometimes sloshing diagonally across the screen, swallowing up the image completely for a brief moment and marking a caesura. And there are quite a number of caesuras, because the seven film minutes span the story of several generations.

At one point the father disappears and the mother and her almost grown-up daughter are left to fend for themselves. They learn to comprehend the loss, support each other, turn gestures of distance into gestures of affection. Until the confidence grows to start all over again. The only thing that does not change here is the blue of the sea.

When Karol Śliwka (1932–2018) opens his drawer, dozens of tools jump out: scissors, compasses, rulers, and knives. For Śliwka’s equally famous and elegant graphic designs are purely handmade. They are displayed on consumer goods and advertising posters, even became iconic symbols of the United Nations. His career was far from predestined: Having suffered a serious eye injury in a childhood accident and bound to take over his parents’ farm, Karol Śliwka’s turn to art could be seen as an act of rebellion. It has paid off, as proved not only by the numerous awards he won during his long career. Via home videos, “Signs of Mr. Plum” also gives us insights into his joyful marriage to an opera singer. Bartosz Mikołajczyk and Urszula Morga skilfully connect Karol Śliwka’s designs with contemporary history, capturing the mood of the 1960s and 1970s with a light hand and quick editing. Graphic design and biography merge into an accessible and highly amusing mixture.