COURAGE

connecting collections

The Filmoteka of the Museum of Modern Art and Polish Film Institute (PISF) Film Award was established in 2011.
It is the prize in the competition of the “best fiction film screenplay created by an artist, set between visual and film arts (experimental film), not shorter than 71 minutes that can function both in the circuit of contemporary art institutions (museums, galleries, art biennale, etc.), as well as the cinematographic institutions (cinemas, arthouse cinemas, film festivals, etc.), whose first designated field of exploitation is cinema.”
The award consists of year-long film directing course and financing for the film project presented in the competition.

Thus far the winners include Łukasz Ronduda and Maciej Sobieszczański, who filmed the “Perfomer”,
Zbigniew Libera, who shot “Walser” and Agnieszka Polska, who is working on the picture titled "Hurra! Wciąż żyjemy”.

The exhibition War in the Air: Radio Free Europe and Bulgaria, which included a press conference and roundtable discussion, was organized in 2011. It was devoted to the 60th anniversary of the first Bulgarian language Radio Free Europe broadcast.

The event was organized by the Archives State Agency of Bulgaria (ASA), the Commission for Access and Disclosure of the Documents and Announcement of Affiliation of Bulgarian Citizens to the State Security and the Intelligence Services of the Bulgarian National Army, the Museum at the Ministry of Interior, St. Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Polytechnic Museum, and the Bulgarian Research Group on the Cold War. During the event the history of Radio Free Europe, and especially its Bulgarian section, was presented. The most important Bulgarian contributors to Radio Free Europe, such as Hristo Ognyanov, Georgi Markov, Dimitar Bochev, and Dimitar Inkyov, were presented. The influence of Radio Free Europe in Bulgaria among the many who listened secretly despite heavy jamming by the authorities was discussed as well.

Text documents and photographs were presented, showing the response of the communist regime which had labeled such broadcasts as a tool of "anti-communist and anti-Bulgarian propaganda" and saw the free flow of information as a serious threat. The attempt by the Communist Party to infiltrate Radio Free Europe with its agents was critically debated as well. The event took place at the Museum of the Ministry of Interior and was well visited. Among the guests were A. Ross Johnson and Robert Gillette, two former directors of Radio Free Europe, and representatives of Bulgarian institutions.

The publication contains excerpts of articles on illegal organizations which were illegally published and distributed. All materials were collected during interviews with political prisoners and illegal group activists.

The political events in Kosovo, particularly the demonstrations of 1981, drew attention from international and Yugoslav opinion makers. Demonstrations of 1981 brought about a new political spirit which encouraged the organized political unity of Albanians in Yugoslavia. In order to expand nationalist sentiment among the wider population, the groups found it necessary to organize propaganda.

During the 1980s, illegal Albanian press began to be distributed among the diaspora, playing an important role in the dissemination of their political agendas. The most popular magazines published in those years were Liria (Freedom), Bashkimi (Union), and Lajmetari i Lirise (The Messenger of Freedom), among others. The influence of these illegal publications was significant, and many Albanians during the 1970s and 1980s managed to read and further distribute these articles, which widely spread the idea of an independent republic and of the creation of a single ethnic (Albanian) state.

This press was devoted primarily to politically sensitive events. Lines such as 'the police forces of the Serbian bourgeoisie again covered our Kosovo with fire’, ‘the blood of our sons and daughters washed Kosovo's streets’, and ‘the path of resistance of the determined struggle is the only way [to] victory, the only way [to achieve] our rights....' were often present in these articles. These newspapers are considered to have provided a powerful weapon in what the Albanian community saw as their fight for freedom, liberation, and ethnic unity.