ATKK-ZMŁ-I-039

Typescript copy with the novella for Krzysztof Kieślowski’s film “From the City of Łódź” (1969). The film presents an impressionistic portrait of Łódź – a city of textile industry and social and architectural contrasts – shot with cinematography by Janusz Kreczmański, Piotr Kwiatkowski, and Stanisław Niedbalski. Before the film received its final title, work on it proceeded under the working titles “The People of Łódź” and “The City of Łódź”. The document contains a description of the planned sequences, divided into the sections “Weekday”. “Sunday”. and “Stone City”. In the first part, the author describes the hard work in the textile factory (the women’s night shift, noise, tired faces), children playing in concrete courtyards, the blood donation point as a way to earn extra money, and the desire for “a better life” reflected in looks cast at shop displays and cheap clothing sales. The theme of alcohol also appears – cheap wine and beer, people “standing in gateways” in Bałuty and the city centre, for whom talking and drinking are ways to “kill time” after work. The second part offers images of empty streets, the car market, a park with competitions and lessons in Polish songs, and people spending the afternoon in their windows, watching the city with quiet melancholy. The third part describes densely built districts, overcrowded and poor apartments, queues at the population registry office, “room wanted” notes posted on poles, and the contrast between wooden houses “destined for demolition” and the new ten-storey apartment block that becomes the final sign of hope.