The Korelacje Festival is an innovative event at the intersection of film art and accessibility culture, presenting Polish films in a new format — with narrators’ voices woven between the original dialogues. It is best known for the cult screening of Marek Piestrak’s “The Wolf” featuring an original narration by Dorota Masłowska.

A film with an original narration is a kind of subjective guided tour through the film — an individual, free, and often emotional interpretation that allows audiences to see the film through the narrator’s eyes.

The festival is organized in Wrocław by Studio Kineskop and the Lower Silesia Film Center (DCF).

This year marks twenty years since the death of Henryk Kluba – an outstanding director, educator, and longtime rector of the Łódź Film School. For the first time in Lublin, we are presenting his feature debut “Skinny and Others” with an original narration by Artur Andrus, created for last year’s edition of the Korelacje Festival.

Skinny and Others, dir. Henryk Kluba (Poland) 1966, 91’, 15+

Mid-1960s. The construction of the Solina dam is underway. Poor living conditions, supply shortages, mud, and emptiness all around. A group of men employed on the site, despite their initial reluctance, begin to form bonds of friendship. When tragedy strikes on the construction site – or at least when they believe an accident has occurred – they decide to hide the perpetrator from the authorities. Henryk Kluba’s feature debut was praised for its realism and strong performances, though some critics reproached it for clinging too closely to the so-called “big production films” with their propagandistic undertones. Kluba never denied his influences but maintained that “Skinny and Others” was a “refined” big production film.

Artur Andrus’s original narration, while often recalling the realities of life and work in the Polish People’s Republic, highlights what now feels more essential in Kluba’s film: a rough-edged yet subtly ironic ballad about male friendship and rivalry. In his commentary on “Skinny and Others”, Andrus can be sharp-tongued, but he doesn’t conceal his fascination with the world depicted on screen. His perspective on a long-gone reality is witty, reflective, and at times, quietly melancholic.

Jakub Demiańczuk

Film with Polish narration (the original audio description read by Artur Andrus) and with subtitles for the Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing (SDH)