Piotr Szulkin (1950-2018) was a filmmaker of profoundly imaginative works, and Golem was his wildly iconoclastic debut feature.
In a bleak dystopian alternate future, a solitary worker suffers a breakdown after being interrogated about crimes he has no recollection of committing. Is he a real human, or a clone created by scientists in an attempt to engineer a new, more submissive race of humans?
A dark satire of Communist Poland in the late 1970s, Piotr Szulkin's Kafkaesque science-fiction allegory is a precursor to Blade Runner, and evokes the post-apocalyptic landscape of Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker. Its troubling depiction of irresponsible science, fake news and unfettered AI now make it all the more prescient.
Golem is presented in a 2K restoration of the film supervised by its late director Piotr Szulkin and sound engineer Nikodem Wolk-Laniewski. This set also includes for the first time anywhere on Blu-ray a selection of Piotr Szulkin's early short film works, newly remastered in HD - plus a new audio commentary by Polish cinema expert Michael Brooke.
• Golem (1979) presented from a new 2K restoration supervised by its late director Piotr Szulkin and sound engineer Nikodem Wolk-Laniewski.
• All-new audio commentary by producer and Polish cinema expert Michael Brooke.
• Four of Piotr Szulkin's early short films, newly remastered in HD and presented for the first time anywhere on Blu-ray:
- One, Two, Three (Raz, dwa, trzy, 1972)
- Everything (Wszystko, 1972)
- A Sketch in Six Parts (Szkic do sześciu części, 1973)
- Copyright Film Polski MCMLXXVI (1976)
• Piotr Szulkin's annotated script and storyboard gallery for Copyright Film Polski MCMLXXVI
• 20-page booklet featuring essays by Michał Oleszczyk and Tomasz Kolankiewicz.
• New and improved English subtitle translation.
• Region Free (A/B/C) Blu-ray.
Directed by Piotr Szulkin
Screenplay by Piotr Szulkin and Tadeusz Sobolewski
Based on the novel by Gustav Meyrink
Cinematography - Zygmunt Samosiuk
Music - Zygmunt Konieczny, Józef Skrzek
Editor - Elżbieta Kurkowska
Production Design - Zbigniew Warpechowski, Janusz Własow
Sound - Nikodem Wołk-Łaniewski
Main Cast
Marek Walczewski - Pernat
Krystyna Janda - Rozyna
Joanna Żółkowska - Miriam
Anna Jaraczówna - Old Woman
Mariusz Dmochowski - Holtrum, Rozyna’s father
Wiesław Drzewicz - Miriam’s father
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“The work of director Piotr Szulkin is all but unknown outside his native Poland, yet it includes some of the strongest movies ever made by a politically-minded sci-fi visionary.ome of the strongest movies ever made by a politically-minded sci-fi visionary.[...] [Golem is] a wickedly funny maze of mistaken identities, false tropes and Eastern European gloom that presages Terry Gilliam’s Brazil by a good half-decade”
Michał Oleszczyk
“[Szulkin is] is Polish cinema's best-kept secret... unhinged dystopian parables transcending simple genre definitions to mock the mechanisms of political power, testifying to Szulkin's unique visual approach, idiosyncratic stylisation and absurdist sense of humour” OffScreen
“Golem is a defiantly satirical and deeply political film...
a striking and committed piece of anti-propaganda that has stood the test of time – sadly, it seems as relevant to the
world today as it
did in 1979”
Kevin Lyons, The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Film and Television EOFFTV
“Szulkin’s profoundly imaginative films can be viewed as existential tales, absurdist parables, or premonitions about modern society’s hostility and the evils of totalitarianism. Drawing from 20th-century philosophy and Polish medieval literature through speculative fiction, noir, and grotesque allegories, Szulkin masterfully wielded the shoestring budgets afforded him to create shockingly iconoclastic science fiction films”
Film at Lincoln Center
“The Polish ‘cinema of anxiety’ soars out of this world in the work of Piotr Szulkin… the films thrive on imaginative vision and sociological absurdity”
Steve Dollar, Wall Street Journal
“An Eastern European Ridley Scott… the cultural commentary of Szulkin’s oeuvre is universalist… his future is our now”
Ela Bittencourt
