This story is featured in Episode 58 The 10th EKRAN Toronto Polish Festival is starting very soon, on November 5. Nine years is a long time – lots of films, guests, screenings, events. It’s a perfect moment to look back. Marta Pozniakowski is the festval founder and director. Having been the organizer and host of nine Polish film festivals in Toronto in the late 1990s and early 2000s, I am really happy to see that young passionate people are continuing this work, in their own way, so effectvely employing the best of today’s technology and their unique skills. Congratulations to…
Author: Malgorzata P. Bonikowska
This story is featured in Episode 57 As our listeners know, Polish-Jewish issues are very close to our hearts. We have featured many such stories. One of them was the 2016 Ashkenaz Festival . This one-week festival, organized every two years in Toronto, is one of the largest and most prestigious showcases of Jewish music and culture anywhere in the world (Ashkenaz Festival in Toronto). Its name comes from Ashkenazi Jews – “Ashkenazim” – Jews from Central and Eastern Europe, whose mother tongue was Yiddish. This year’s festival featured artists from across Canada and around the world, including Israel, Russia, Italy,…
This story is featured in Episode 57 When I was in Poland in June, I attended the official opening of the Museum of Warsaw, also referred to as the Museum of Things, located in a number of historic buildings in the Old Town Market Square. This is how the houses where the museum is located looked before the war in 1939, right after the war in 1945 and when they had been renovated in 1954. Out of 300,000 original items in the museum’s collection over 7,000 were selected to be exhibited in 21 thematic rooms such as: Room of Mermaids,…
This story is featured in Episode 56 In our last episode 55 I spoke with Polish Canadian filmmaker – Rafal Sokolowski, an award-winning film and theatre director whose short films have been shown worldwide. We talked about “22 Chaser” starring Brian J. Smith, his feature debut, which premiered in Toronto on the weekend we released that episode. I attended the opening night and found the movie very well made, superbly acted, gripping and powerful. I did have a problem with its ending though – unable to make a living in a decent way, Ben, the main character, a tow truck…
This story is featured in Episode 56 Exactly a year ago in Episode 18 (Young Canadian experts on Poland) we talked about the first ever multi-stage contest (Olimpiada Wiedzy o Polsce) where elementary and high school students of Polish language schools in Canada and the US were tested on and competed in their knowledge about Poland – its history, geography, culture, traditions (and this year also sports) – all in Polish. This year the Polish Language Teachers Association of Canada organized the contest again. I had the pleasure of attending its Jeopardy-style finals in Mississauga. There were three-member elementary school and high…
This story is featured in Episode 55 It’s a tradition that every time I visit Warsaw I interview Canada’s ambassador to Poland. My last interview with Ambassador Stephen de Boer. Now the embassy is waiting for its new ambassador to arrive so this time I had a great pleasure to meet and talk to Jeremy Wallace, charge d’affaires, who is now the acting chief diplomat there. His Polish is quite impressive and he is very passionate and enthusiastic about his mission. He presented me with three interesting books about Canada. One of them, “Poles in the Canadian Mosaic – 150…
This story is featured in Episode 55 The Press Club Poland is the founder of the annual journalistic Maciej Plazyński award together with Jakub Plazynski, a son of late Maciej Plazynski. After returning from the award gala in Gdynia, I visited the beautiful club in Aleje Ujazdowskie in Warsaw after the elegant award gala which took place in Gdynia, at the Museum of Emigration. In Gdynia, it was so great to meet many people from the Press Club, Jakub Plazynski and his mother, give some interviews: and see, after several years, Joanna Sokolowska-Gwizdka, the author of Culture Avenue.pl – a…
This is a special episode of POLcast, recorded during Margaret’s visit to Poland in June, where she received the prestigious journalistic Maciej Plazynski Award for her work on POLcast. POLcast awards. In this episode you will hear: Interviews: • And the M. Plazynski award for POLcast was granted by…. Jarosław Włodarczyk is the president of the Press Club Polska, which is the founder of the annual Maciej Płażyński award together with Jakub Plazynski, a son of the late Maciej Plazynski. This year’s award in the category of “Journalist of a Polish diaspora medium” was granted to Margaret P. Bonikowska for her…
We are very happy to have received journalistic recognition from ours peers in Canada (two awards), Austria, and Poland. Maciej Plazynski Award Granted by the Press Club of Poland and the late Maciej Plazynski’s son Jakub to journalists and media serving the Polish diaspora around the world June 2018, Museum of Emigration, Gdynia, Poland Gala Canadian Ethnic Media Association (CEMA)’s Award CEMA’s 39th annual award, awarded to Margaret P. Bonikowska and Tomek Kniat Category: Podcasting November 2017, Toronto, Canada Golden Owl – Goldene Eulen Awarded by the Polish Congress in Austria, Jupiter Magazine and the Polish Intellectuals’ Club in Austria…
This story is featured in Episode 54 This great idea was born out of a close intellectual, spiritual and artistic connection between two women who live on the opposite sides of the continent (one in California, the other one in Ontario, Canada) and who had never met in person until their project was ready to be shown to the world. Dorota Skowronska-Krawczyk does research in biochemistry at the University of California at San Diego and Ewa Henry is a visual artist based in Mississauga, next door to Toronto. Their respective passions came together to create VISIONS, an innovative project which…