Arts&Ideas

The final concert of this year's International Competition of Contemporary Chamber Music (former Penderecki Festival of Contemporary Chamber Music) concluded with a powerful performance by Krakow's Motion Trio, who won the Grand Prix of the 4th edition of the festival in 2000.

Four films remain in a series of Polish Cinema film viewings organized by Pod Baranami Cinema (Rynek Glowny 27). Polish films are shown with English subtitles twice a month on Tuesdays at 16:00.

Galicja Museum invites all fans of good music to a concert of the Klezzmates - a Krakow-based band that blends traditional Klezmer music, jazz and Balkan folklore as well as classical music.

Polskie Audiovisualne Publishers have released a real bounty of riches entitled, "The Anthology of Polish Animated Films," 222 minutes of Polish animation from 1958 to nearly the present day, including some of the brightest names in Polish animation history, stretched over two DVDs and including English and French subtitles (these are mainly superfluous - the majority of the films use only musical soundtracks).

When French second-string film director Francois Ozon released his soft-porn, soft-intelligent "thriller" entitled "Swimming Pool" a few years ago, viewers might have left the cinema asking "Is he joking?" After watching his latest film entitled "Angel," an English-language quasi-melodrama with quasi-artistic pretensions, they might be more likely to ask "Is he serious?".

Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels is unique among famous books in the English language not only because it is an outstanding and imaginative work of satire, but also because nobody reads more than the first half of the book.

Absurd as it may sound, the new Indian production "Don" directed by Farhan Akhtar is a rather bad film, but a fairly good Bollywood film.

Last April "Triosk," a famous band from the Australian independent music scene, played in Krakow club RE.

Joe Cocker, the English rock and blues singer popular since the 1960s performed last Monday, August 13 at Wawel Stadium in Krakow.

Cedric Tiberghien: New talent and interpretation in Harmonia Mundi recording of Chopin: 4 Ballades; Brahms: Ballades op.10