The Films of Franciszka and Stefan Themerson

Introduction and post-screening discussion with Bruce Checefsky!

Franciszka Themerson (1907- 1988) and Stefan Themerson (1910–1988), perhaps the most influential of Polish experimental filmmakers, produced five films from 1930 to 1937 that rank with the greatest of the European avant-garde and helped to reveal film as a new medium of personal and political expression. Equally noteworthy were two others shot in England during World War II for the Film Unit of the Polish Ministry of Information and Documentation in Exile. Of these seven, only the last three survived the war. This program will feature three surviving Themerson films from the 1930s & 40s (Adventures of a Good Citizen, Calling Mr. Smith and The Eye and the Ear) alongside remakes of two of those lost —Apteka and Moment Musical —by Bruce Checefsky, Director, Reinberger Galleries, Cleveland Institute of Art.