Double life of Cracovie – cinema guided tour
Schedule
Mon Oct 06 2025 at 05:00 pm to 07:30 pm
UTC+02:00Location
Kraków Old Town | Krakow, MA
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Ta wycieczka jest w języku angielskim. Wydarzenie w języku polskim znajduje się tutaj:
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Kraków has several features which make it an ideal movie set.
First of all it is a historical city, so several important WW2 movies were filmed in Kraków’s main square like: „Katyń” by Andrzej Wajda. But of course the most famous movie ever been filmed here was different WW2 movie, Schindler’s list by Steven Spielberg. Respect to a man who at the time was the pope of Hollywood, that a few scenes were filmed exactly in the building in old town Kraków where the historical Schindler used to live.
Intrestingly Wajda, as a person who survived war at age 15, whose father was murdered in Katyń was a very valuable source of information about WW2 for Spielberg. Spielberg eventually was rewarded with his first and second Oscars at once for Shindler’s list (the best picture & the best director). A few years later it was Spielberg’s opinion and letter that lead to rewarding Wajda with the most prestigious life achievement, Oscar. So we may say that this so called young boy with a beard paid back to Wajda for his effort. ;)
Before Paweł Pawlikowski received an Oscar for „Ida” the most famous worldwide Polish director was Krzysztof Kieślowski and film students around the world still study his movies deeply. Nevertheless in „Double live of Veronique” Kieślowski used scenes filmed in the Kraków’s main square to show empty spacious area during a miserable day. That symbolized the psychological condition of the movie character but, also miserable period of communism. So we may say that another movie positive feature of Kraków is spacious main square. Double live of Veronique is obviously inspiration for our tour title, because we are going to visit city from abother perspective.
The same usage of an empty, dark, spacious main square we may see in the directing debut of famous actor Jerzy Stuhr in „List of lovers” based on the book by very a Krakowian writer: Jerzy Pilch.
Nevertheless Kraków have changed since the early 90s a lot. Well with many buildings renovated, growing number of tourists and restaurants, Kraków colorful alive old town plays a very cheerful role especially in movies by Juliusz Machulski like: „Vinci” and another one with Machulski cowriting script and directed by Jacek Bromski, criminal story based on a bestseller book „Entanglement”.
Historical European architecture also brought Indian movie producents here ,who made the action movie called „24” and became a succesfull Tamilwood production. ;) Current chairman of the European movie association – Agnieszka Holland also used Kraków’s neoclassical architecture which play Moscow in great historical biographical drama, called „Mr Jones” Therefore Kraków’s architecture will be the 3rd film possitive feature.
My personal deeper interest in the cinema started with … listening to the RMF classic radio which plays only classical and movie music. Definitelly Kraków’s jazz tradition is ananother film possitive feature. This one we can appreciate especially in an another film of Juliusz Machulski „Vabanque” and one of the greatest trumpet jazz soundrack ever, composed by Henryk Kuźniak, but also played by famous Kraków’s jazzmen: Jerzy Bożyk and Andrzej Marchewka.
Finally probably the most legendary Kraków’s movie stories are: burning the Kazimierz buildings to film: „Night and days” by Jerzy Antczak and last but not least „From a far country” by Krzysztof Zanussi, which 1981 scenes with Russian tanks in the main square spotted by USA’s satelites almost lead to the 3rd world war...
I’m passionate about great cinema, especially: classsic, art-house, dark comedies I also love movies with great soundtracks. I have been doing regular good movies with Paweł events since 2015 where I present, lecture and discuss about masterpieces of Polish cinema to English speaking audience. I’m also Kraków’s professional tour guide with 14 years experience. Among more than 20 themed tours I do regularly film tours about Schindler’s list in Kraków; Polański & the Pianist in Kraków. I was privilaged to guide at the greatest cinema exhibition I have ever seen. Andrzej Wajda movies exhibition in National museum of Kraków
See you on my movie tour! :)
Paweł
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Where is it happening?
Kraków Old Town, rynek Główny 8, 31-042 Kraków, Polska, Krakow, PolandEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
