Subverted Gazes: Łódź Film School Works at the 20th Five Flavours

Today

YEDU, dir. Liao Mukai

What happens to the cinematic gaze when one changes location, language, and perspective? How does the experience of living between cultures influence the way stories are told? And what do Asian filmmakers take away from the Łódź Film School, one of Europe’s leading film schools? For the anniversary edition of Five Flavours, we turn the spotlight on a new generation of filmmakers whose work emerges at the intersection of diverse traditions, aesthetics, and life experiences.

All the films from the ‘Subverted Gazes’ programme will be presented in cinemas and online

‘Subverted Gazes' is a special showcase dedicated to directors of Asian descent who studied at the Łódź Film School. This is cinema crafted from the perspective of the insider-outsider – observing Poland, the filmmakers' places of origin, surrounding societies, and personal histories. While the selected works address themes of migration, displacement, identity, and liminality, our interest goes further: to the precise moment where distinct ways of seeing intersect and collide.

We seek to explore what emerges at the crossroads of cultures through an ongoing creative dialogue. Here, Asian perspectives meet the Polish film school tradition, while deeply personal narratives align with Łódź’s characteristic ethos of critical inquiry into reality. Indeed, the school’s influence extends far beyond technical mastery; it manifests in narrative structure, visual composition, documentary observation, and the relationship between director and subject. It is precisely these fruitful tensions – embedded within the cinematic form through fractures and collisions – that this programme brings to light.

The programme is divided into two curated strands. ‘Collisions of Aesthetics' focuses on cinematic language. The three films explore different creative approaches to the experience of living between cultures, moving between documentary and fiction, observation and memory, personal experience and inherited storytelling practices. This is a young, deeply personal cinema that makes no attempt to smooth over differences, but instead draws creative tension from them – particularly in its engagement with the motif of family. Tan Mo’s ‘Insomnia' is a nocturnal portrait set between Łódź and China; ‘The First Gale of Spring' provides a personal account of the final years of the director's grandparents, filmed between Poland and Japan; and ‘First Conversation' forms an intimate family self-portrait set in Macau.

The First Gale of Spring, dir. Jun Akagawa

‘Systemic Tension', meanwhile, presents three narratives about living in-between: across cultures, languages, and social margins. Chiang Ming-Wei’s ‘Square of Freedom' observes Poland through the eyes of an international student, confronting the migrant experience with rising nationalism and a crisis of solidarity. Chang Yu-Sung’s ‘The Case of N.N.' examines the fate of an unidentified person whose body remains unclaimed, asking whether empathy can survive within the routines of an institution. Finally, ‘YEDU' depicts a search for truth that gradually reveals how the system alienates and transforms those operating within it.

Featured films:

Insomnia (dir. Tan Mo, Poland 2017)
The First Gale of Spring (dir. Jun Akagawa, Poland 2024)
First Conversation (dir. Ho Kueng Lon, Macau 2019)
Square of Freedom (dir. Chiang Ming-Wei, Poland 2019)
The Case of N.N. (dir. Chang Yu-Sung, Poland 2023)
YEDU (dir. Liao Mukai, Poland, China 2024)

The section is curated by Lu Xuan, a graduate of the Editing Department at the Polish National Film, Television and Theatre School in Łódź (PWSFTviT), who currently lives and works in Poland.

The screenings will be followed by two panel discussions corresponding to the two thematic strands. We will explore how cinema is forged at the intersection of cultures and how the experience of migration transforms the cinematic lens. We will also examine the influence of the Łódź Film School’s aesthetic tradition on Asian filmmakers, and consider why Poland continues to serve as a destination for studying, creating, and shaping their artistic futures. The festival discussions will offer an opportunity to consider whether looking from the margins reveals systemic fractures that remain invisible from the centre.

‘Subverted Gazes' represents more than a showcase of short films; it is an attempt to create a space for genuine dialogue – between East and West, Poland and Asia, diverse cinematic languages, and, just as importantly, filmmakers and audiences. From the very beginning, Five Flavours has sought not only to screen films but also to put them in a broader context and create meaningful opportunities for people to come together. This year, we invite audiences to explore what happens when encounters between cultures find expression in film itself.