"The Story of the Kowalski Family" and Quarter L. Memory Messages on the Screen

Abstract

The article is devoted to two films by the independent operator, director and producer Arkadiusz Gołębiewski: The Story of the Kowalski Family (Historia Kowalskich), which raises the subject of the Holocaust, and Quarter L (Kwatera Ł), which deals with Stalin’s crimes in Poland. They are interpreted not as historical works, but as films about memory and - in the case of the latter - memory in statu nascendi. Their involvement in political and historical polemics and their relationship to the vision of history supported by the Polish State are analyzed.