In 1982, young Polish screenwriter, director and music teacher Hieronim Neumann created a captivating experimental animation titled Blok, after the term “block” used in much of Eastern Europe to describe the common apartment buildings erected mostly during Communism. In what appears to be a single continuous shot, you get a voyeuristic glimpse of a series of vignettes that take place inside various apartments. Neumann’s films use technical tricks, often based upon innovative solutions. They constitute a distinct phenomenon in Polish animation, at the same time being a part of its experimental trend and pushing boundaries of the form.
