Pictures from Poland

The Polish Film Club screens popular Polish films for an eager audience in Ireland, and now one of its movies has been given a full cinema release, writes Arminta Wallace

IF official statistics are to be believed, there are at least 300,000 Poles living and working in Ireland. The vast majority of these are in the 18 to 35 age bracket, which means they're probably keen cinema fans.

Poland, meanwhile, has a particularly vibrant film industry at the moment. Put these jigsaw pieces together, and what do you get? A Polish film club, that's what. This innovative group is based around a website, polishfilmclub.com, where people can find out about current releases in Poland and find out which films will be coming to Ireland, and when. If you're so inclined, you can post your own reviews - or get into a bit of celebrity gossip. All of which, if you're young and Polish and working in Ireland, must be good news.

Recently, film club member Kasia Nowojska saw the club's latest release, Jeszcze Raz (Once Again)at the IFI in Dublin. As someone who has been working in Ireland for just five months, does she find it a little bit strange to be watching Polish movies in an Irish cinema?

"No, not at all," she says. "You know, I can't be in Poland right now, but I like to watch Polish movies. So to be able to go to the cinema here and watch them is great. And what is even more great is that I can be up-to-date. Sometimes I talk to my friends back home and I say, 'Have you seen that movie?' And they say, 'No - have you?' And I say, 'Yes'. People are surprised that we have everything Polish here, even films."

The idea of a Polish film club came to Richard Carolan while he was managing the Dublin International Film Festival. "I realised that a lot of our audience was Polish, and I saw from the films that were coming in that there was a gap in the market," he says.

"Given how many Poles are now living in Ireland, I thought there'd be interest in a wider variety of films. So I got in touch with a guy I'd worked with before who had a website for Polish people living here, and who also runs a marketing and advertising company. I asked if he'd be interested in working on a project to distribute Polish films in Ireland - and here we are."

From the beginning, rather than simply bring in films and distribute them to cinemas in the regular way, they decided to set up the venture as something akin to a mini-festival, or a tour. "We picked hotspots where there are Poles living around the country, and got all the cinemas on board," he says. "We also got a fantastic sponsor in Permanent TSB.

"Then we have media partners, the Polish Heraldand the UK magazine Polish Express, who give us advertising space to reach a Polish audience. We started in Dublin with Cine World, then moved to Cork and Galway, and it has been a great success. We've been to 15 locations altogether. Last month we brought Sztuczki (Tricks)to Waterford, Portlaoise, Naas, Navan, Monaghan, Athlone and Dundalk - and now it's going to be at The Light House for a four-week run."

The club, he hastens to add, isn't just for Polish nationals. Irish members are welcome too. "We're very keen to introduce Polish people to Irish cinema, and vice versa - so the website is in English and Polish, and all the films we bring in have subtitles."

The whole question of how clubs acquire distribution rights for other countries is an interesting one and, more than likely, an early sign of massive changes to come in the whole area of film distribution.

"Although we're releasing new films in Ireland, the core audience is Polish - so it's almost like an annex of Poland rather than a foreign territory," says Carolan. "It's a new market for Polish producers, and one they're just getting used to, so the process has probably taken a little longer than we would have expected. But one of the big advantages we have is that the Polish Film Institute is one of our sponsors in Poland. We also work with the Irish Film Board - with every Polish film we release, we also screen an Irish short beforehand."

This is to help maximise both Irish and Polish audiences, such is the shape of the globalised audience to come. But how do they decide which films to bring in?

"We watch pretty much every film that comes out, and we get DVDs sent to us," he says. "We also keep an eye on box-office performance. But it's mainly a subjective thing. Tricks, for instance, had a very small release on the Polish festival circuit. But we brought it in because we fell in love with it."

The film has been described as a kind of Polish Amelie, with an almost toally non-professional cast. Jeszcze Raz (Once Again), on the other hand, is a rom-com. "It's a real summer movie in the vein of PS I Love You," says Carolan. Not only are they totally different to each other, they're probably both different to our idea of what a 'Polish' film should be. "There's a great mix of films coming out of Poland at the moment," he says, "and they're very productive as well. They make about 20 to 30 films a year, so you've got the real staunch arthouse stuff like Tricks,then you've got big, brassy comedies, and also hard-hitting films. So they're not just sticking to the one form. They're making diverse and interesting movies."

For Kasia Nowojska, the film club offers both a connection to home and a new way to meet people in Ireland. Tricks, she says, was a particularly nostalgic experience because it reminded her of home. "It's very Poland," she says. "There's an atmosphere which is hard to describe, but you can see a typical small Polish town which is not very rich - actually, quite poor - but the way they show that place is kind of a metaphor to focus on people and their lives."

She takes a pretty philosophical view of life herself. "In Poland I go to the cinema very often," she says. "I came to Ireland to find better life, but also to find a place for living. I'm not focused only on job stuff.

"I look also for free-time activities. Somebody told me about this website, and it's great. I go on it quite regularly and sometimes I take part in the discussions which are on the forum."

What sort of things do people talk about on the forum? "Oh, you know, which films are good to watch and which aren't. And some gossips." She laughs. "And also, you must know that every Pole is the best football coach, doctor and film critic. They love to be right about everything."

Aha. So that's why they fit in so well here.

• Sztuczki (Tricks)is now showing at Dublin's Light House