Europa odnaleziona

• Published in: Kwartalnik filmowy no. 117; pp. 203 - 209
• Main Author: Giżycki, Marcin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Polish
• Published: Warsaw Instytut Sztuki Polskiej Akademii Nauk 01.01.2022; Institute of Art, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Subjects: Avant-garde; Film / Cinema / Cinematography; History of Art; Interwar Period (1920 - 1939); Motion picture festivals; Stefan and Franciszka Themerson; avantgarde film
• DOI: 10.36744/kf.1029
• ISSN: 0452-9502

Stefan and Franciszka Themersons’ Europa is a 1932 Polish avant-garde film inspired by an Anatol Stern poem. The film was considered lost during WWII but was miraculously found in Bundesarchiv in 2019 by the employees of the Pilecki Institute’s Berlin branch. A restored copy of the film premiered at the London Film Festival in October 2021. Now we have a chance to compare our imaginary notion of the work to the actual piece, and the latter does not disappoint. Europa is a poetic vision of our world going mad, over-consuming goods, and preparing for a new war. It has a freeflowing chain of images, resembling city symphonies by Cavalcanti and Vertov. The Themersons used a number of frame-by-frame techniques, among them the so-called “animated photogram” of their own invention. The question remains as to whether the newly rediscovered version, originally prepared for screenings in France, is identical to the one screened in 1932 in Warsaw. (Non-reviewed material).