The film, produced entirely in Poland by Polish filmmakers, was directed and based on a script by Grzegorz Jankowski (“Ziemia uderzyła o piłkę” [“The Earth Hit the Ball”], “Polskie gówno” [“Polish Shit”]). It was produced as part of an international campaign conducted by the Book Institute to promote the “New Books from Poland” catalogue and the booksfrompoland.pl website to key markets for the sale of literary rights: American, British, German and French, and, thanks to the Internet, worldwide.

As emphasised by Dariusz Jaworski, Director of the Book Institute, the aim of the Institute’s activities is to provide at least a minimum compensation for the pandemic-related losses suffered by Polish literature and the publishing industry in the international circulation of literary works. “We are convinced that thanks to extensive promotional activities on key foreign markets for Polish publishers and authors, we will be able to make up for the losses resulting from the cancellation of the international book fair this year,” stressed Dariusz Jaworski.

The core of the campaign and its first stage comprise advertising and editorial content in the most important industry magazines and websites on the aforementioned markets: in the American ‘Publishing Perspectives’ (publicity texts, banner ads in industry mailing, advertising in the rights newsletter), the British ‘The Bookseller’ (banner ads in the business newsletter), the German ‘Boersenblatt’ (publicity text in paper and online edition, banner ad in the morning newsletter), and the French ‘Livres Hebdo’ (publicity text and banner ad in the newsletter for publishers and booksellers).

The second stage of the campaign will include the publication of new language versions of the film (Spanish, Russian, German, and French), and foreign partners of the Book Institute from the publishing industry as well as embassies of the Republic of Poland and Polish Institutes around the world will be invited to cooperate in their distribution and promotion on social networks of relevant language areas.

In the third stage, the Book Institute will show a series of nine film presentations of selected books from the “New Books from Poland” catalogue on social networks: Oraz wygnani zostali (“They Too Were Banished”) by Wacław Holewiński, Zimowla (“The Hibernation of Bees”) by Dominika Słowik, Nieradość (“Nonjoy”) by Paweł Sołtys, Pchła (“Flea”) by Anna Potyra, Patyki, badyle (“Sticks and Stalks”) by Urszula Zajączkowska, Pomyłka (“Mistake”) by Marta Kwaśnicka, Światło Zachodu (“The Light of the West”) by Bartosz Jastrzębski, Bunt i afirmacja. Esej o naszych czasach (“Rebellion and Afirmation. An Essay about Our Times”) by Bronisław Wildstein, Tyrmand. Pisarz o białych oczach (Tyrmand. The Writer with the White Eyes”) by Marcel Woźniak.

The “New Books from Poland” catalogue is a selection of new titles from the Polish book market addressed to foreign publishers. This tool, prepared every autumn by the Book Institute, serves the Institute as well as Polish publishers and literary agents to persuade foreign publishers to publish books by Polish authors translated into foreign languages and, in this way, to popularise Polish literature among the general public around the world.

In 2020, an extremely difficult year for the publishing industry, when all major international book fairs were cancelled as a result of the pandemic, the Book Institute has particularly focused on finding tools to effectively reach foreign publishers and readers with a message of the valuable and inspiring offer of Polish literature. The result of this search is an international promotional campaign “New Books from Poland”, using both traditional and online media.

To learn more visit the Recommendations section.

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The campaign was prepared by the Department of Foreign Programmes of the Book Institute under the direction of Mateusz Adamski. The creation of Internet media was provided by Anna Światłowska. The promotional film and a series of image films of selected books from the New Books from Poland catalogue were produced by Tesla Pro Anna Kronenberg for the Book Institute. Director and screenplay: Grzegorz Jankowski, filming and colour correction: Adam Palenta, aerial photography: Michał Wencek, Makeup: Dominika Truszkowska, costumes and set design: Maria Migdalska and Emil Richard, transport and logistics: Krzysztof Kotowski, film editing: Konrad Nowakowski, sound postproduction: Bartosz Jaworski, editing: Agata Fedenczak, producer: Tomasz Kronenberg. The text was translated by David French.