Set in an underground dungeon inhabited by bundled, ragged human beings, after the nuclear holocaust. The story follows the wanderings of a hero through the situations of survival. People wait for the Ark to arrive and rescue them while their habitat falls apart. Delving deep into the dusty and long abandonded vaults of b-cinema in search of lost gems always leaves me with a bittersweet taste. On one hand the discovery of unexpected gems where no one would think them possible is a rewarding experience. On the other hand though it makes one wonder how many of these remarkable low-budget oddities, personal love affairs of directors never quite famous and now all but forgotten, have almost forever slipped from memory? n any case what we have here is a little post-apocalyptic gem from Poland that is really better than it has any right to. The dystopian near future of O-BI, O-BA finds a group of survivors of the nuclear war that ravaged the Earth inhabiting an underworld concrete bunker and biding their time as they wait for the mysterious Ark, an air ship of some kind that will come and save them. The Ark proves to be an elaborate hoax, carefully designed to give hope to the malnourished and desperate denizens of the bunker, while in the meantime the dome that separates their miserable existence from the nuclear winter outside is slowly caving in. What first striked me about the movie is the design of the bunker and the depiction of the survivors. The survivors are gaunt, filthy and terrible-looking penitents, dressed in rags and aimlessly wandering the neon-lit halls of the bunker like automatons. The bunker is a rundown, seedy place, with bright neon lights peering from all sides like the eyes of malignant beasts. On one hand it is a slightly 80's depiction of the dystopian future but the movie never stoops down to MAD MAX cheese. Instead it combines biting political satire with the bleak outlook of a world with no future, black comedy with barbs on apathy, religion and power. The survivors, for example, are fed some kind of flour dropping from a tube that hovers in the air - later on we discover the food supervisor uses books and the Bible itself as filler for this meagre meal. There are many such short symbolic touches, perhaps not life-changing or faith-restoring, yet playful, clever and inspired. One thing is for sure; O-BI, O-BA is not your run-of-the-mill sci-fi schlock. It overcomes its modest budget with creativity and has genuine artistic aspirations both from a writing and directing perspective. My opinion is that it should have been filmed in black and white instead of colour though. The director uses atmospheric light and shadow to great effect and it would have registered even better in stark black and white. The blue-green neon on the other hand outstays its welcome after a while. Just a minor gripe in an otherwise solid b-movie with its heart set in all the right places. Imagine a less bleak THE ROAD (Cormac McCarthy) being injected with the satire and humour of DR.STRANGELOVE and you're getting there. See it if you can find it.

A stranger who turns up at a resort hotel in midwinter, behaves rudely towards other guests and disappears the next day. Found half-frozen in the snow he is taken to hospital where his story is gradually revealed.

During a costume party on New Years Eve, a group of revelers join a celibration drinking and cheering in the New Year. One party goer, having drank too much, sticks her head out the window and hollars bitterly against the regeim in which they live. Within seconds uniformed police knock at the door and insist on searching the papers of all the group present. The partygoes look dumbfounded, looking ridiculous in their costumes and brutish policemen search them. This is the nightmarish world of Hungary on New Years 1957 in the startling "Diary for my Mother and Father." This story follows a young student, who is orphaned as she grows to adulthood in the shaddow of the 1956 Hungarian uprising. Coming from the communist intellegensia, he sees her friends and family react differently. Her lover, a married factory manager supports the patriots and later assists fellow workers in staging a strike. Meanwhile her sister and others express anger at being forced from their homes during the revolution and continue to express a hatred for the rebels afterwards. But in the end they realize that for all people, real life is not possible after the revolt and its brutal suppression by the Soviets and their collaborators.

A continuation of "Diary for My Children," the film picks up in 1950, when Juli, the diarist, is 18 and determined to become a movie director.

1969 film by Jerzy Hoffman

Two sisters, a journalist and a student, are struggling with financial problems. They decide to save their budget by stealing from wealthy men. They break into their apartments through windows in order to realize their American dream...

Scope is a prisoner on a behemoth space station and is chosen, like all his fellow prisoners, to 'volunteer' for the exploration of far-away planets. Landing on planet Australia 458, he is given a hero's welcome with all the sex, booze, and violence that any one man can stomach. But as his new caretakers push him towards even more heinous and deplorable acts, Scope finds that his freedom comes with a high price; his own violent demise, broadcast live for the viewing pleasure of Australia 458's inhabitants.

2015 film by Jerzy Skolimowski

Magical Barrier is comparable to Last Year at Marienbad with its non-linear development, mysterious characters and inexplicable mis-en-scene. It also shares the guerrilla film-making style of the French New Wave. It is one of Skolimowski's best. The film follows a newly graduated medical student in his pursuit of an unattainable woman. He follows her through the streets of 60s Poland where spontaneous dance parties and candle-light rituals erupt. A dream-like meditation on post-industrial life in Communist Poland. Filled with exquisite, unforgettable images, this masterpiece will hopefully find its way onto DVD soon.

Juli moves to the big city in order to take up a job in a factory, and on the very same day the foreman János asks her to marry him. Alas, communication between the two is rough going from the very start – their visions of how life together is supposed to look divide them. János can’t find it in his heart to accept Juli’s yearning for independence or her past. In raw images that portend an almost predetermined conclusion with their social-realist tone, the film shows Juli’s resistance with all of its consequences – she decides to have her baby all on her own. In the end, we witness the actual delivery of Juli’s (in reality of course actress Lili Monori’s) child, the first birth to be shown in a film in Europe. Nine Months was honoured with the Fipresci Prize (Parallel Sections) in Cannes in 1977. Since my first film « Cati », I have been obstinately inquiring about women with well defined personalities, able to make decisions in an independent manner, although at that time « feminism » was not really in vogue. It has now become so. The heroine of my film is one of these women. She is lucid, self-relying, and responsible. She tells the man who loves her that he must accept her as she is, with her past life, her experiences, her already formed personality. - Marta MESZAROS

After having lost her parents, young Juli returns from the Soviet Union to her native Budapest. Scarred by the wounds of the past, the ghost of Stalin’s oppression haunts her as she reunites with her aunt and adoptive mother Magda.

1972 film by Andrzej Żuławski

1973 film by Wojciech Jerzy Has