“Histories of the Future. Reconstructions of Polish Cinema” is an innovative project of the National Centre for Film Culture.
For eight weeks groups of middle school, secondary school and university students, under the supervision of educators and filmmakers, will watch, decode, disassemble and reassemble Polish films. Five new scenes and five new video essays will be made in co-operation with screenwriters, storyboard artists, the director, cameraman, sound technicians, lighting producers, editors and set designers.

Designing ‘Histories of the Future,’ we wanted to fuse film studies with forming media competence. But above all we had the ambition of teaching the participants how films are really made.

Michał Pabiś-Orzeszyna, head of the Film Education Department at the National Centre for Film Culture

How did it look like in 2017?

What does it look like in practice? First, the participants watch five Polish films. Then, in groups, they analyse them: they learn how the screenplay is built, how the presented world is constructed and what aesthetic techniques are used in order to invent new scenes that did not exist in the original version. The ideas are then translated into screenplays and dialogues and then into storyboards; the participants work out every shot: frame composition, props, scenography.

The next stage of the workshops is work on set: the scenes are filmed with the aid of practising filmmakers and using professional equipment; the participants get to know the secrets of lighting, they plan movements and acting style; they become actors and filmmakers themselves. The ready material is then edited and provided with a soundtrack.
Finally, the participants return to the original version of the films and experiment on them. They check how the film’s meaning changes when they edit the scenes, change the sound and colour.

Co-financing: