Polish Film Festival 2025 in Seoul – Wojciech Jerzy Has Retrospective

The 2025 Polish Film Festival will celebrate its 7th anniversary in Seoul! From 2 to 21 September 2025, audiences will have the opportunity to discover the work of Wojciech Jerzy Has. All of the Polish director’s feature-length films will be screened at the Cinematheque Seoul Art Cinema. The event is co-organised by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute.

Wojciech Jerzy Has – A Master of Polish Cinema on the Centenary of His Birth

While studying at the Łódź Film School, Wojciech Jerzy Has had already been making short documentaries since the 1940s. In the 1950s, he made his feature-length debut with The Noose (1958). For this reason, Has, alongside Andrzej Wajda and Andrzej Munk, is considered one of the founders of the “Polish Film School” – a unique movement in the history of Polish cinema. The Senate of the Republic of Poland declared 2025 the Year of Wojciech Jerzy Has, commemorating the centenary of his birth. 

Has’s films straddle the line between realism and fantasy. On one hand, they depict the harsh everyday reality of post-war Poland; on the other, they reveal elusive, fairy-tale worlds of human desire. Among the director’s most famous works are The Saragossa Manuscript (1965) and How to Be Loved (1963). The Polish Film Festival will feature 14 of Has’s feature-length films, showcasing his fascinating worlds that combine keen observation of post-war Polish reality with imagination rooted in human desire. 

“The Saragossa Manuscript” and Other Films by Has – Screenings and Meetings with Critics and Filmmakers

The screenings will take place at the Cinematheque Seoul Art Cinema in Kyunghyang Art Hill, located in the Jeongdong district – one of South Korea’s most important film institutions. Each year, it presents more than 500 films as part of retrospectives, special programmes, periodic reviews, and festivals, enriched by CineTalks – meetings with filmmakers and audiences. As part of the anniversary retrospective of Wojciech Jerzy Has, Polish film critic Karol Szafraniec will come to Seoul to deliver a lecture on the work of the Polish master. Director Kim Hee-jung and festival programme director Kim Sung-wook will also share their reflections. All screenings of the “Polish Film Festival 2025 – Wojciech Jerzy Has Retrospective” will be presented with English subtitles.

Polish Film Festival 2025 – Wojciech Jerzy Has Retrospective Programme

2 September 2025 (Tuesday)

• 7:30 pm – The Noose (102 min)

3 September 2025 (Wednesday)

• 7:40 pm – Memoirs of a Sinner (120 min)

4 September 2025 (Thursday)

• 5:30 pm – The Codes (84 min)

• 7:40 pm – Write and Fight (119 min)

5 September 2025 (Friday)

• 4:10 pm – Gold Dreams (97 min)

• 6:40 pm – The Saragossa Manuscript (184 min)

6 September 2025 (Saturday)

• 3:30 pm – One Room Tenants (94 min)

• 6:00 pm – The Noose (102 min)

7 September 2025 (Sunday)

• 1:00 pm – Farewells (103 min)

• 3:30 pm – The Hourglass Sanatorium (124 min) + CineTalk with Kim Sung-wook: “Imagination of Ruins, Labyrinth of Time”

• 7:30 pm – Goodbye to the Past (76 min)

10 September 2025 (Wednesday)

• 5:00 pm – The Tribulations of Balthazar Kober (116 min)

11 September 2025 (Thursday)

• 4:40 pm – The Doll (160 min)

• 8:00 pm – How to Be Loved (102 min)

12 September 2025 (Friday)

• 6:00 pm – Goodbye to the Past (76 min)

• 8:00 pm – An Uneventful Story (112 min)

13 September 2025 (Saturday)

• 3:30 pm – Gold Dreams (97 min)

• 6:00 pm – The Codes (84 min) + CineTalk with Karol Szafraniec: “Poland, War, Trauma – Has as a Polish Director and Universal Creator”

14 September 2025 (Sunday)

• 1:30 pm – The Saragossa Manuscript (184 min) + CineTalk with Karol Szafraniec: “Books, Paintings, and Other Objects – The Film Imagination of Wojciech Jerzy Has”

• 7:00 pm – The Doll (160 min)

17 September 2025 (Wednesday)

• 7:40 pm – The Hourglass Sanatorium (124 min)

18 September 2025 (Thursday)

• 8:00 pm – Farewells (103 min)

19 September 2025 (Friday)

• 8:00 pm – One Room Tenants (94 min)

20 September 2025 (Saturday)

• 3:40 pm – An Uneventful Story (112 min)

• 6:30 pm – Write and Fight (119 min)

21 September 2025 (Sunday)

• 1:30 pm – Memoirs of a Sinner (120 min)

• 4:10 pm – How to Be Loved (102 min) + CineTalk with Kim Hee-jung: “Portrait of a Woman in the Cinema of W.J. Has – The Hidden Master of Eastern European Cinema”

• 7:30 pm – The Tribulations of Balthazar Kober (116 min)

Additionally, all 14 films will also be screened at Gwangju Theater from 17 to 28 September 2025. A detailed schedule and further information are available on the Gwangju Theater website.

Polish Film Festival in Seoul 2025

• Venue: Cinematheque Seoul Art Cinema

• Dates: 2–21 September 2025

• All films will be screened with English subtitles

• Tickets: www.cinematheque.seoul.kr

• Organisers: Korean Association of Cinematheques, Polish Embassy in South Korea, Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Gwangju Theater

• Co-organisers / Patrons: Korean Film Council (KOFIC), City of Seoul, Seoul Film Commission, City of Gwangju, Gwangju Information & Culture Industry Promotion Agency