History of Cinema in Popielawy - Poland (1998)

In the 1960s, 10-year-old Staszek, the narrator of this film, is sent to visit his grandparent’s village of Popielawy, where he writes in his diary about his school-friend Józef. Józef comes from a family of blacksmiths, all of whom bear the name Jozef. Since he is the sixth consecutive son to be called Józef, he is nicknamed Szustek (“The Sixth“). Roughly one hundred years before - almost a quarter of a century before Edison and the Lumière Brothers - the first Józef invented a cinematographic apparatus by which he was able to project images drawn onto the bladders of fish and pigs, making them ’come to life’. A hundred or so years later, and Józef’s descendent Szustek is determined to re-construct this apparatus, despite the opposition of his father, who is equally determined that the boy follow his forefathers and become a blacksmith.