What if, in the heart of summer, you were transported to a cold New Year’s Eve and came face-to-face with the terrifying Phantom Carriage? On the last day of July, we invite you to a screening of a 1920s classic that inspired Ingmar Bergman. The excellent organist Michał Kocot will improvise music for Victor Sjöström’s Körkarlen from 1921. Film critic Sebastian Słowiński will introduce us to the world of Swedish film of the era.

Victor Sjöström, director of  the Phantom Carriage plays the lead role, a carouser who loses consciousness in a fight just before the beginning of the new year. In extensive flashbacks, he confronts the consequences of his life decisions, the people who placed their hopes in him, and those he hurt. All this triggered by a phantom carriage to the other world he runs into; it turns out the driver is someone the protagonist knows. Sjöström, along with cinematographer Julius Jaenzon, used period-specific special effects, such as the then pioneering double exposure, which earned the film a place in horror history. The day may be hot, so we promise that the Orlen Main Hall will be cool and dark…

The sound of the organ will surely enhance the mood of this incredible work. This time, Michał Kocot will improvise. Trained in Poland and Germany, the organist and harpsichordist currently works at the Institute of Music of the University of Zielona Góra and the Institute of Instrumental Studies of the I.J. Paderewski Academy of Music in Poznań. You may remember this artist from the first edition of the NFM Organ Cinema series – he enriched a screening of Fritz Lang’s Destiny with his improvisation.

If you hold a festival pass or accreditation for the 26th International Film Festival New Horizons, you are entitled to a 20% discount off the price of max. two tickets for each of the NFM Organ Cinema events. The discount is available at the NFM Box Office, upon presenting the New Horizons Festival pass or accreditation. 
 

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