15.10.2025

Maggie Smith retrospective at the BFF

The dame of British cinema, the legendary Professor McGonagall, the beloved Violet Crawley from Downton Abbey. Although cinema lovers tend to associate Maggie Smith with her later acting roles, this year's British Film Festival is reaching back to her early productions, which have not been shown in Poland before. This is the first retrospective of this outstanding actress in Poland!

We have no doubt that one of the highlights of this year's BFF will be the retrospective of Dame Maggie Smith, an icon of British cinema.

“A little over a year after Maggie Smith's passing, we want to pay tribute to her extraordinary legacy, focusing on the period that shaped her as an acting icon,” says Dorota Reksińska, programmer of the British Film Festival and manager of Kino Muza. "Before she became Professor McGonagall or Countess Crawley to global audiences, her talent exploded on British stages and in the cinema of the 1960s and 1970s. Our retrospective focuses on these early performances, most of which are unknown to Polish audiences, which showcase her fantastic versatility. This is a unique opportunity to rediscover her talent and see the birth of the legend we all know today."

Although the full festival program will be announced on October 28, we can already reveal that the centerpiece of the retrospective will be Maggie Smith's Oscar-winning, daring performance in Ronald Neame's 1969 film The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. We also invite you to a screening of Robert Altman's legendary Gosford Park, for which Dame was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

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The Maggie Smith retrospective is also an opportunity for the British Film Festival to collaborate with Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, which published Michael Coveney's biography of Maggie Smith in April this year.

It is an insightful portrait of one of the most outstanding stage personalities of our time, created with great sympathy and reliability. Viewers of the British Film Festival will have the opportunity to purchase this and other books on British culture.

Some of the retrospective screenings will be preceded by lectures by Katarzyna Czajka-Kominiarczuk, a film expert and internet creator known as Zwierz Popkulturalny.

The full program of the British Film Festival will be announced on October 28.

Tickets and passes will go on sale on October 30.