(Zakazane piosenski, Leonard Buczkowski, Poland 1947, 97 min., DCP)
Forbidden Songs was the first feature film released in Poland after World War II. Conceived and written by Ludwik Starski, a Polish-Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, the film remarkably adopted the genre of light musical comedy to portray the diverse experiences of Warsaw's inhabitants during the period of Nazi occupation from 1939 to 1945. Although it was a huge box office hit received enthusiastically by Polish audiences, the film was ferociously attacked by critics and withdrawn from movie houses after just three months in order to undergo revisions that would appease Communist authorities. The film’s score, created by Roman Palester, draws heavily on authentic popular sources, notably satirical Polish “street songs” banned by the Nazis, but nonetheless performed as expressions of resistance and a means of psychological sustenance during this time of deprivation and terror. Today, the film remains an iconic record of Polish wartime history and a commemorative symbol of national survival.
In the film, a musician named Roman Tokarski, responding to a “call for songs” in the paper, appears at the Film Polski studio. Through reminiscences at the piano, he initiates a series of flashbacks that enfold each of the film’s forbidden songs into larger narratives about the fate of his family and other residents of their apartment building, as well as more broadly, that of Warsaw’s civilian population as a whole.
“The film gives us a glimpse into the ways in which music helped Polish Jews and non-Jews alike to reclaim notions of community in the immediate postwar years,” explains Barbara Milewski, Associate Professor of Music at Swarthmore College, who will introduce the film at the screening.
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Please note: This is a partner film screening that does not require proof of COVID-19 vaccination. Masks are still required for all patrons, regardless of vaccination status.