Filmowa Stolica
There are a lot of outdoor screenings during Filmowa Stolica, the city's summer film festival. The screenings are held at venues all over town.
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You can find out about Warsaw's thriving arts scene in the English-language Warsaw Insider or What's Up, both of which are available at most major hotels. If you read Polish, the monthly IKS (Informator Kulturalny Stolicy) and Activist and the daily Gazeta Wyborcza have the best listings. Tickets for most performances are inexpensive, but if you want to spend even less, most theaters sell general-admission tickets—wej?ciówki—for a few z?oty immediately before the performance. Wej?ciówki are often available for performances for which all standard tickets have been sold.
There are a lot of outdoor screenings during Filmowa Stolica, the city's summer film festival. The screenings are held at venues all over town.
Don't count on seeing many Polish films while visiting Warsaw; only one cinema specializes in Polish features: Iluzjon Filmoteki Narodowej. You will also find art movies and even festivals of silent movies in its repertory. Recently renovated, the 1950s cinema is now a listed building, a great example of postwar modernism. Standing in a green square in the Old Mokotów district, its characteristic purplish blue neon sign beckoning from the distance, "Iluzjon" is one of Warsaw's magical places. There is a pleasant cafe inside, called "Iluzja."
You won't find box-office blockbusters at the stylish Kino Muranów, the favorite choice of serious cinemaniacs.
Tiny Kino.LAB is a part of the Center for Contemporary Art at the Ujazdowski Castle, showing experimental art films, video art, and even kitschy 1950s science-fiction movies. In summer, the cinema goes open-air (the screen is moved to the castle's courtyard).