The Balcony Movie/Film balkonowy (Pawel Lozinski, 2021, Poland)

Scottish premiere; with an online Q&A with director Paweł Łoziński

This screening is brought to you by our curatorial partner, The Beetroots Collective.

Can anyone be a movie character? Can the world be captured in a single frame? Paweł Łoziński films pedestrians from the balcony of his Warsaw flat: sad, thoughtful, glued to their phones, young and old. Neighbours, random visitors, or simply passers-by. The filmmaker stops them in their tracks and asks how they deal with their lives. Recording from his balcony for over two years, he has created a unique space for dialogue, a lay confessional of sorts, where everyone can stop by and tell their story. The protagonists of the film carry secrets and mysteries, and are not easy to label. The Balcony Movie is a radical comeback to the beginnings of cinema — a person approaching the camera.

The 2024 edition of Samizdat is supported by Screen Scotland’s National Lottery Film Festival and Screening Fund and Film Hub Scotland, part of the BFI’s Film Audience Network, awarding funds from Screen Scotland and National Lottery funding from the BFI.

Accessibility

Wheelchair accessible, English subtitles, Pay-what-you-can tickets (£0-£8)

If you want to attend this screening but find it unaffordable, you may be able to have the cost of your ticket, commute, and/or childcare covered by the Audience Access Fund — see here for further details.

Content notes: Discriminatory language, grief and trauma, alcoholism, homophobic language, mentions of suicide, extreme nationalist/right-wing beliefs