Presented on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK, these two early features by Jerzy Skolimowski (EO, Deep End) offer a rare insight into the cinematic origins and evolution of one of Europe’s most significant filmmakers.
Skolimowksi himself stars in his 1965 film Identification Marks: None, charting a day in the life of a student, Andrzej Leszczyc, as he prepares for army service. But as Andrzej tries to straighten out his life before his departure, he encounters Barbara. Is she the woman he’s been waiting for?
The fourth in the series of works featuring his celluloid alter ego Andrzej, Hands Up!Finds Skolimowski once again on screen. The film was made in 1967 but banned for 14 years under Poland’s communist regime. Skolimowski later revisited Hands Up! and added a sequence that explains why it was originally blocked by the censors.
Extras
Newly recorded audio commentaries on both films by critic and scholar Michał Oleszczyk (2023)
The Boxing Ichthyologist (2023, 32 mins): writer Michael Brooke introduces us to the early Polish films of Jerzy Skolimowski in this newly commissioned video essay
Archive interview with Jerzy Skolimowski (1983, audio only, 43 mins): the director discusses his early work in an interview recorded at the BFI’s National Film Theatre
Stills galleries
**FIRST PRESSING ONLY** Illustrated booklet with new writing on the films by Ewa Mazierska, an essay by David Thompson on the career of Jerzy Skolimowski and film credits
