Kęszyccy Family Archive

The author of the film is Marcin Kęszycki, who as a teenager documented family and social life with a Newa 2 camera. 

The film was made in 1968 on the farm of Mr. and Mrs. Chwiejd in the Chojno-Młyn settlement in the Notecka Forest during a holiday trip Marcin went on with his grandmother Maria Przyborowska and his school friend Janusz Jeziółkowski. 

Shots of a rural farm and a busy street in the city. A man is washing himself with water in the open air. Shots of a deer in the forest. One of the boys is sitting on a folding mattress under a tree and reading a book. As the filmmaker recalls, during the trip he and Janusz read “With fire and sword” and “The Deluge” together. The friends spend their time swimming in lakes, fishing and helping with the harvest and other minor field work. Marcin and Janusz’s stay in the country coincided with the first man landing on the moon, which the filmmaker remembers as the biggest sensation of that summer. The last part of the film depicts a trip to town in a horse-drawn cart for cakes and ice cream. The teenagers returned to the farm slightly not sober for the first time in their lives. During his next holiday at the settlement, Marcin made a nature film about a swan’s nest called Silence, which won an award in an amateur film competition. 

(AT)