A week of Polish films

Article by: COLIN COVERT , Star Tribune
Updated: August 10, 2012 - 8:25 AM

Festival films combine history, comedy and a cult classic by Roman Polanski.

Poster for "The Fearless Vampire Killers."

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The Twin Cities Polish Film Festival returns to St. Anthony Main Friday for a weeklong cavalcade of cinema with a generous helping of Chopin on the side.

The film program runs the gamut, opening at 7:30 p.m. with the World War II documentary "Irena Sendler: In the Names of Their Mothers," the saga of young Polish women who saved the lives of thousands of young Polish Jews.

The evening's second feature (9:30 p.m.) comes from one of those Holocaust survivors, Roman Polanski, who turns his graveyard wit to a tale of a Transylvanian village beset with bloodsuckers, "The Fearless Vampire Killers." Polanski directed, co-wrote and stars in the 1967 cult classic as the hapless hero, with Sharon Tate as the innkeeper's daughter.

Saturday at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. there will be free piano recitals with music students and professionals performing Chopin.

The evening's screenings are "The Officer's Wife" (5 p.m.), a documentary on the 1940 Katyn Forest massacre in which Soviet troops carried away thousands of Polish officers and intellectuals and systematically executed them, and at 7:30 p.m., the romantic holiday comedy "Letters to Santa."

Six features and two programs of shorts from the world-renowned Lodz Film School will be presented in rotation. The series is presented in conjunction with the Twin Cities Polish Festival, Sat. and Sun. (St. Anthony Main, 115 SE. Main St., Mpls. For a complete schedule, visit www.mspfilmsociety.org. Tickets: $5-$8.50, available online or at the door.)

Colin Covert • 612-673-7186