We are flooded with comic books adapted for the big screen. ‘Magic pictures’, as they were once called by Majka Jeżowska in one of her songs, are becoming more and more magic. Almost every month there’s a Hollywood premiere of an adaptation of a comic book about superheroes. But not every film has to be a ‘Hollywood production’, and not every comic book is about machos wearing capes and tight pants. Such films can be found in a DVD rental store or Empik. Even if a film about the adventures of a tight-wearing American hero isn’t released in Polish cinemas (and it happens quite often, because somehow they aren’t so popular here as they are in the majority of the civilized world), for sure it’ll soon be in your home cinema. What kind of comic based films can and should be presented at a festival then?

Strange, unusual, original, broadening the space between those two medias- the comic book and the film.

They have a lot in common (narrativeness, visuality, limited world portrayed in the form of a  film frame and divided into scenes, conventionality) but there’s one primary feature that divides them- using still images, comic books force readers to join those images on their own, to add what goes on in between them, to complete missing space and to exercise their imagination. Film directors try to use this feature, e.g. whole sequences are missing in the Oscar-winning ‘No Country For Old Men’ directed by Coen brothers or in Jim Jarmusch’s classic ‘Down By Law’. Other film directors also try to implement different comic tricks in their films, with various effects. Some of them, e.g. Robert Rodriguez (Sin City) or Zack Snyder (300; Watchmen), adapt comic books scene after scene, frame after frame. Others, like Ang Lee (Hulk), try to capture the form of a comic book in their film, and finally there are those who search for the moment of transition between a comics to a film. Tsubota Yoshifuri belongs to the last group, with his straightforward, almost exhibitionistic film ‘Miyoko’ in which he tried to tell about difficulties of creating manga. ‘Barefoot Gen’, our second example of a Japanese classic anime (closely related with manga), is a film adaptation of Keiji Nakazawa’s ‘Barefoot Gen’, a shocking autobiographical novel about the American attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and its consequences, presented from the point of view of a small boy. To complete the Asian part of our comics section, we present Chan-Wook Park’s ‘Oldboy’, a brutal drama which is part of the ‘Vengeance Trilogy’. The film is known for the Polish audience, but unfortunately it’s rarely featured.

European comic books are completely different. A different format, mentality, different stories that are rarely adapted for the big screen. Although some projects have been completed in recent years, e.g. animated films ‘Persepolis’, ‘Largo Winch’ or film adaptations of comic books about Asterix. But here at TWO RIVERSIDES Festival we reached deeper into the genre and prepared a screening of a film that could have only been made in Europe (it would be unthinkable in the prudish America from over four decades earlier). Roger Vadim’s ‘Barbarella’ is a cult masterpiece about the main heroine’s sex-odyssey into space that still makes a strong impression on audiences.

And of course, there’s the US. The land abounding in superheroes. So much that they can be used almost in every type of films (from comedies, through romance and thrillers, to fantasy) pulling in all age groups. There are dozens of puerile comic-based films, but it’s enough to mention Christopher Nolan’s ‘Dark Knight’ to prove that a story about Batman can be at the top of the scale. In Kazimierz we want to present the beginnings of comic-based films, at least the ones telling about the adventures of Batman. The first full-length film about this superhero, almost completely unknown to Polish audience and directed by Leslie H. Martinson, is a continuation of the cult 1960s TV series with Adam West in the title role. And the first TV series about Batman was released in 1943, 4 years after the premiere of the comic book. You will have a chance to see it here in Kazimierz. According to an old tradition, it will be divided into episodes to be featured before other comic-based films.

And finally the last film of this kind but made in a different, muddled way. We present Richard Kelly’s ‘Southland Tales’, a futuristic, eclectic variation on the Apocalypse of St. John, full of special effects and film stars. The thing is that the film is only a part of the whole comics. Kelly created it in 6 chapters, but based his film only on the last three of them. The first three were published as comic books only in the USA. Is it possible to grasp all complexities of the plot without them? It’s not easy, but it’s worth trying. But then we should reach for Kelly’s comic book and find out if we got it right.


And that’s the goal we have set by creating this comics section at our Festival. After leaving Kazimierz, there will be a whole year before we meet again. So, in the meantime… read a comic or two…