London’s Kinoteka Polish Film Festival Sets 2026 Edition

EXCLUSIVE: The Kinoteka Polish Film Festival has set the lineup for its 24th edition, running from 4 February to 29 March at venues across London.

The festival will open at the BFI Southbank with a 35mm screening of Andrzej Wajda’s Ashes and Diamonds. The film serves as part of the festival’s expansive retrospective of Wajda’s work. Like previous years, the retrospective will be held in collaboration with the BFI, ICA, and Ciné Lumière. The festival’s Wajda programme will celebrate the centenary of the filmmaker’s birth with screenings, Q&As, talks, and an exhibition, Andrzej Wajda: Portraits of History and Humanity, which will analyse his career.

Set on the final day of WWII, Ashes and Diamonds follows a young Polish Resistance fighter who is ordered to assassinate a Communist official. With his target being a former comrade-in-arms, this triggers a moral dilemma, calling into question all that was fought for. 

Other highlight titles set to screen for the retrospective include A Generation (1955), Man of Marble (1977), French Revolution drama Danton (1983), and the Oscar-nominated drama Katyn (2007) about the execution of 22,000 Polish army officers by the Soviets in 1940, during WWII.

The festival will close at Cine Lumière with a screening of Brother (2025) by Maciej Sobieszczański.  The film is described as a powerful coming-of-age drama focused on a family where violence and manipulation are always simmering under the surface. The synopsis reads: Dawid is a young man who loves his brother and judo training, but he struggles to meet his own and his family’s expectations at home, at school, and at the gym. Filip Wiłkomirski won the award for Best Acting Debut at the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia in 2025 for his performance in the film. The pic also landed the Ecumenical Jury Award at the 2025 Warsaw Film Festival.

In the way of new Polish cinema, the festival will screen two films by Jan Komasa (Corpus Christi). Those titles are Good Boy (2025), a Polish-British co-production and the director’s first English-language film. Starring Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough as the psychotic couple enacting his redemption plan, the film is described as a sharp social commentary. Komasa’s follow-up to Good Boy is Anniversary (Rocznica, 2025), a dystopian thriller starring Diane Lane, Kyle Chandler, Phoebe Dynevor, and Dylan O’Brien. The festival will also screen Agnieszka Holland’s Franz and Chopin, A Sonata in Paris by Michał Kwieciński. 

The Kinoteka Polish Film Festival is organized by the Polish Cultural Institute, based in London, and supported by the Polish Film Institute.