Abstract

Like many Eastern European countries, Poland has seen a succession of divergent economic and political regimes over the last century, from prewar “embedded liberalism,” through the state socialism of the Soviet era, to the present neoliberal moment. Its cinema has  been inflected by these changing historical circumstances, both mirroring and resisting them. This volume is the first to analyze the entirety of the nation’s film history—from the reemergence of an independent Poland in 1918 to the present day—through the lenses of political economy and social class, showing how Polish cinema documented ordinary life while bearing the hallmarks of specific ideologies.

“Mazierska offers an extensively contextualized, behind-the-scenes mini-history of Polish films from the 1920s to the present… The bibliography is excellent, demonstrating the author's command of the secondary sources, including historical and economic overviews and film reviews. Recommended.” • Choice

Ewa Mazierska is Professor of Film Studies at the University of Central Lancashire. She has published over twenty books on film and popular music, including From Self-Fulfillment to Survival of the Fittest: Work in European Cinema from the 1960s to the Present (2015), Marxism and Film Activism (2015), and European Cinema and Intertextuality: History, Memory, Politics (2011). She is principal editor of the journal Studies in Eastern European Cinema.