Film Canon – Film History – Film Education: Remarks on the Polish Film Museum’s Anniversary Poll

Abstrakt

In 2015, the Film Museum in Lodz, Department of History and Theory of Film at the University of Lodz and the Polish Filmmakers Association worked together on a project “12 films for 120 years of cinema”. Filmmakers and people professionally involved in film culture were asked to compile their 12 best films ever and their 12 best Polish films. The organisers received 279 responses which mentioned 1,348 films in total. After analysing the results, the lists of best movies were published as well as variant lists according to the respondents’ profession and age. The first part of the paper raises questions regarding aesthetic axiology (as far as culture-based text hierarchies are concerned) and social communication (which concerns the question of a canon: who establishes it and for what purpose?). In the second part of the article, the authors discuss the results of the poll, highlighting shortcomings of the project when compared to similar polls in the past.