Remembering the Pionier Cinema

Does anyone still remember it?

This year, Spektrum is not only nearly a week of great cinema but also a tribute to one of Świdnica’s former movie theaters. Due to the renovation of the theater hall at the Świdnica Cultural Centre, this year’s edition will take place in the auditorium of the First High School (I LO) – the former Pionier cinema.

At today’s address of Pionierów Ziemi Świdnickiej 30 (currently home to the First High School), there once stood the Red Army Officers’ House, which included a cinema called Pionier. Officially, it was a Soviet cinema – screening Russian films and aimed primarily at the soldiers stationed in Świdnica’s barracks and their families. With the advent of the Third Polish Republic, the site was transformed into an educational institution. Interestingly, however, the cinema hall at I LO, unlike the rest of the building, is not a pre-war German structure. The facility taken over by the Soviets did not meet all their needs, so an additional wing was built. It was there that the Pionier cinema was created – a place many older residents of Świdnica may remember from screenings of Soviet cartoons. In recent years, the renovated auditorium has once again served local culture enthusiasts – says Lech Moliński, one of the organizers of the Spektrum Film Festival and a popularizer of knowledge about small cinemas in Lower Silesia.

Special Screening: How to Be Loved by Wojciech J. Has

The atmosphere of the old cinemas can be felt during one of this year’s special screenings. On Wednesday (October 23) at 12:30 p.m., there will be a screening of the cult film How To Be Loved directed by Wojciech Jerzy Has (1962). It is an adaptation of Kazimierz Brandys’s novel and the only Polish School film centered on a female protagonist.

The story follows Felicja (played by Barbara Krafftówna), for whom a plane to Paris becomes a time machine. In her imagination, the actress travels back to wartime Kraków, where she once hid her great love – an actor, Wiktor Rawicz (Zbigniew Cybulski), wanted by the Gestapo. Through her inner monologue, she reconstructs the painful history of their relationship, showing that sacrifice was not enough to be loved, and love itself could not save anyone.

The screening will be preceded by a lecture by Lech Moliński.