CLOSER: SOUND | Invisible dimensions of cinema

About the event

Closer: Sound — a new FINA series devoted to the invisible dimension of cinema. Delving into the image, sound gives it tone and expression. At the same time it goes beyond the frame, calls out and pulls us into the story in ways we often do not notice. Despite its fundamental role, film sound has long been sidelined. Cinema is primarily understood as the art of the image, as 'the visibility of human engagement with matter'. Prepared by the National Film Archive – Audiovisual Institute, the series is dedicated to cinema as a multisensory experience. It is an invitation to listen to cinema with equal care. Closer: Sound focuses on the practices, techniques and technologies of film sound — from recording, through processing, to playback. Screenings will be enriched by conversations with the creators behind the soundtracks of the presented titles. An integral part of the series are lectures that bring closer the history and development of phonography and its impact on the evolution of film language. The programme is completed by films that themselves tell stories about sound — directing attention beyond the screen and revealing the mechanisms that shape our cinematic experience. Closer: Sound continues the programming line of the "Ziemia Obiecana" hall, taking advantage of the hall's exceptional acoustics, and at the same time opens a broader Closer programme — devoted to the technical dimensions of the film art. The cycle runs from October to June and includes nine screenings — one in each month. Place: FINA, ul. Wałbrzyska 3/5, Warsaw (Służew metro). 30 January, 18:30 — Anioł w szafie, dir. Stanisław Różewicz, Poland, 1987, 91'. Lecture: Stefan Głowacki. Anioł w szafie is an exceptional but lesser-known film in Stanisław Różewicz's oeuvre, inspired by the director's experiences while working on the soundtrack for 'Kobiety w kapeluszu'. The main character is Jan (an excellent, subtle performance by Jerzy Trela) — an introverted sound engineer haunted by the echo of a traumatic event from the past. Following his return to painful memories, Różewicz draws a moving study of alienation and existential crisis. This suppressed, inward-looking character could be kin to the protagonists of 'Blow Out' or 'The Conversation'. It is hard not to notice affinities with the films of De Palma and Coppola — the obsession and helplessness of their tragic male protagonists also resonate in Trela's delicate, affecting portrayal. In Różewicz's film it is sound that becomes the carrier of memory — a medium of returning, painful past. The exceptional shape of the Anioł w szafie soundtrack is the work of Wiesława Dembińska — an outstanding sound operator and director who collaborated on key works of Polish cinema. Weaving sounds of the present, memories and recordings, Dembińska created a unique, multilayered sound language that perfectly expresses the protagonist's psychological fragmentation. Her work was honoured at the Polish Film Festival, where the film received an award for best sound. 20 February, 18:30 — David Holzman's Diary, dir. Jim McBride, USA, 1967, 74'. A remarkable — and probably the first Polish screening — of Jim McBride's cult film, one of the earliest and most interesting examples of the mockumentary in film history. David Holzman's Diary, made in 1967, tells in a brilliant, simultaneously funny and disturbing way the story of a young New Yorker who decides to film every second of his everyday life. Special attention should be paid to one of the protagonist's 'companions' — the Nagra tape recorder, the revolutionary invention of Stefan Kudelski, which made it possible to take sound filmmaking out of the studio and permanently changed sound recording practices. The Nagra is often associated with the aesthetics of cinéma vérité and direct cinema, with the promise of greater proximity to reality and filmic 'truth'. Presenting McBride's film, however, we draw attention to the reverse of this process. While Kudelski's invention opened new paths in the search for cinematic truth, it also provided tools for blurring the boundaries between documentary and fiction. Filming became an intimate and personal practice, heralding the contemporary ubiquity of cameras, microphones and screens. In the figure of David Holzman one can now recognise a precursor of contemporary media self-narration — streams of autobiographical creations flowing through social media networks. 15 October, 18:30 — Blow Out, dir. Brian De Palma, USA, 1981, 104'. Lecture: Stefan Głowacki. 20 November, 18:30 — Katarzyna Szczerba & Katarzyna Gondek — short film programme. Guest: Katarzyna Szczerba & Katarzyna Gondek. 11 December, 18:30 — Chopin, Chopin, dir. Michał Kwieciński, Poland, 2025, 126'. After the screening there was a meeting with specialists from Dreamsound studio, Marcin Kasiński and Kacper Habisiak, hosted by Jan Topolski.