Bicycle Thieves – Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art

Bicycle Thieves [Ladri di biciclette], directed by Vittorio De Sica, Italy 1948, 89'

• Bicycle Thieves, a timeless masterpiece of Italian neorealism and irrefutable proof that even behind a simple story there may hide a deeply moving drama.

• Awarded a Honorary Academy Award, Vittorio de Sica’s film is a leading work of Italian neorealism. Bicycle Thieves is not only a story about a heartbreaking tragedy of an ordinary man driven to desperation by his economic situation, but also a remarkable portrait of the social reality of post-war Italy. The family relationships are astonishingly plausible, and the social commentary is timeless and universal.

• Why were the leading roles not played by professional actors?

• We will try to answer these and many other questions together with our club’s expert Diana Dąbrowska. We invite you to the screening and discussion, during which you will be able to ask questions and share your ideas on how to interpret the film. What do you think Bicycle Thieves is about? We want to hear your opinion!

• Film scholar born in the south of Italy, film critic, educator, organiser of film events and reviews, artistic director of the Hommage à Kieślowski Film Festival in Sokołowsko (from 2019). She publishes, among others, on Filmweb portal, in ZNAK, Ekrany and KINO magazines. She runs the project Accademia of Italian Cinema which consists of educational online meetings and podcasts, where she looks at more or less known works of great cinema from the Italian Peninsula. Co-editor of the academic publication (together with Anna Miller-Klejsa, PhD) Kino włoskie po 1980 [Italian cinema after 1980] (University of Łódź, 2018). Author of the podcast Kieślowski 2.0 – Nauka o filmie poprzez twórczość Krzysztofa Kieślowskiego [Kieślowski 2.0 - Learning about film through the work of Krzysztof Kieślowski], featuring Agnieszka Holland, Janusz Zaorski, Michał Oleszczyk and Mikołaj Jazdon, among others. Winner of the second place in the prestigious Krzysztof Mętrak Competition for film critics (2020), the audience award in the National Competition of Film Speakers organised by the Polish Federation of Film Societies (2020) and the Leopold Staff Award for promoting Italian culture in Poland, with focus on cinema (2018). In 2022, she received the prize of the Polish Film Institute in the Film Criticism category. Her greatest treasure is Kędziorek, a cuddly canine friend, who is a known barking film expert and a regular at many film festivals.