Sarnyai Zsófia - Filmtudomány mesterképzés, II. év

Faculty of Cultural Studies of University of Gdańsk

I’ve never been to Poland before, and frankly it wasn’t even my first idea to go there for my Erasmus mobility when I started my application process. Then, after having conversations with ex-Erasmus students on my faculty, about how this city influenced her,  I finally made the decision to put the Faculty of Cultural Studies of University of Gdańsk, in the first place of my list. Although my goal is to become a filmmaker, - therefore practical classes are more important for me in a way- while I was planning what subjects to choose in my Learning Agreement, I realized that most classes are theoretical and closer to media and culture studies then film studies. So I decided to choose those subjects from the course offer that are approaching film theory and art theory, some of them were even on other faculties, like American Studies and the Faculty of History. My chosen courses were: Contemporary Art, Contemporary Spectacle, Contemporary American Cinema, Philosophy in Media and Culture, History of Poland in Films. I also chose to attend a Polish Language course, to get closer to the language and culture.

During my first weeks I arranged my timetable and finalized my list of courses with the help of my erasmus coordinator, professor Grzegorz Piotrowski. I really loved to attend the early events organized by Erasmus Student Network. They put a huge emphasis on socialization, making all of us get to know each other better. They organized a 3 days long week-end programme called Adaptation Camp where we were merged with students from Kraków and Białystok. We spent the entire week-end together while competing with each other in smaller groups and getting to know the Polish traditions through games. My courses were held on the main campus of University of Gdańsk, in the neighbourhood of Oliwa. For most classes, like History of Poland in Films, or Contemporary American Cinema, I needed to watch movies at home in advance, but for the Contemporary Art class I went to art galleries to make essays about installations and exhibitions. Thanks to that, I visited the local art galleries in Gdańsk and  Warszawa which made my stay way more meaningful. On the Campus they organized free movie screenings monthly, called “Cinematic Poland”. I attended this event several times, where I could watch movies from different important Polish directors, such as Krzysztof Kieślowski, Roman Polański and Paweł Pawlikowski. As a person who attended to classes from three different faculties, I was able to have a glance in different approaches towards cinema, attitudes that weren’t identical to the type of film theorist’s perspective that I’ve been learning before. During the course of History of Poland in Films, we rather searched for historical accuracy and methods of depicting Polish people and other nationalities, while in the class of Contemporary American Cinema we reviewed how the art of the American film changed by the inspirational waves that influenced the different creators and tried to see the whole industrial picture. The most interesting class for me was the Piloshophy in Media and Film lecture where we studied contemporary philosophical minds and their theories about mass culture and modern technology. This class was important to me mostly because I never had the opportunity before to really get deep in philosophical thinking before. Professor Joanna Sarbiewska arranged separate hours for us, non-Polish speakers and prepared all the materials in English for us just to give us the perfect circumstances to understand each philosophy the best way possible. I had the feeling of getting more information about today’s world’s zeitgeist, how people in our time are seeing the mass culture and how they are acting towards it.

The city of Gdańsk first seemed to me as a good place for students only because of the strong organization of ESN. But as I started to get a deeper knowledge about where I am more, I started to see its historical importance: this town used to be occupied by Germany until the end of World War I. Through the XX. century Gdańsk had a huge impact on Polish politics and culture, the revolutions of 1974 and 1980 bursted from here, because of that, many films glorify this city.  I had the chance to get to know one local student, Martyna Minkiewicz, she participated in ESN and volunteered to be my “Erasmus buddy”. She showed me the city and talked to me about the university’s system, which was important mostly because I got the biggest impression about Polish people through her. I was surrounded by Erasmus students most of the time, the university organized separate classes just for us, like the Polish Language course where we started to learn the language from level A. During this lecture we got to understand today’s way of living in Poland and important traditions too with my fellow international classmates. That gave us the chance to speak about our national traditions and our home countries.

Besides living in Gdańsk, I visited other great cities, like Wrocław which is one of the centers of Polish culture and art, also filled with small dwarf sculptures all around town. I stayed in Kraków for a week-end to visit other Erasmus students I got close to during the Adaptation Camp. On the first week of December, me and two colleagues from Erasmus went to Warszawa to see the National Gallery and the Marie Curie Museum. Us three even visited Oslo together to saw the Munch Museum and the popular painting, “The Scream”. In conclusion, this semester influenced me a lot, and I am grateful for getting all of these cultural experiences through this mobility.