Russia-Poland. New gaze. Documentary films by young polish and russian filmmakers.

From an innovative program in cross-cultural encounter called Russia-Poland. New Gaze, selected film students from a number of film schools in Russia “traded places” with their counterparts from film schools in Poland to make short documentary films about each other’s countrymen. As a group the films offer intriguing personal glimpses – a “new gaze” – into the lives of “others”, with the similarities at least as startling as the contrasts. The enthusiastic young film-school students used their talents and skills to explore who those "Poles" and "Russians" really are. These films thus came to life through the confrontation of prejudices with spontaneous interactions, and the collision of expectations with facts, bringing us closer to the truth about the stereotypes dividing these two nations.

The films have been shown over 300 times throughout Europe and cumulatively have garnered nearly thirty awards.

Special guest: Russia-Poland. New Gaze project curator, film critic Mateusz Werner.

Russia-Poland. New Gaze was co-produced by Eureka Media and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, with further financial support from the Polish Film Institute and in collaboration with the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing, Gerasimov All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography, St. Petersburg State University of Cinema and Television, K. Kieslowski Faculty of Radio and Television at University of Silesia, Polish Television, and the European Documentary Network.

Project curator: Mateusz Werner
Tutors and art supervisors: Maciej Drygas, Andrzej Fidyk, Vladimir Fienchenko, Dmitriy Kabakov, Tue Steen Müller, Jacek Petrycki, Dorota Wardęszkiewicz, Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz
Producer: Krzysztof Kopczyński
Co-producer for Polish Television TVP SA: Witold Będkowski

Tuesday, January 29, 2008, 5:30 - 10:00 PM Free admission

Yale University
Luce Hall Auditorium
The MacMillan Center
34 Hillhouse Avenue
New Haven, CT 06511

Presented by: The Polish Cultural Institute in cooperation with Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and The MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale