A rescue chronicle
Films documenting the condition of the palace, successive stages of work, discoveries and conservation decisions.
THIS IS NOT A HISTORIC RECONSTRUCTION
The cinema room belongs to the contemporary design programme of the palace. There is currently no evidence that this room served a cinematic function in the Walewski period.
The cinema room belongs to the contemporary design programme of the palace. There is currently no evidence that this room served a cinematic function in the Walewski period.
An idea recorded in the design
The contemporary schedule of floor areas identifies basement room no. 6 as a “cinema room”, with an area of 21.98 m². This provides a sufficient basis for developing it as part of the palace's present adaptation. It is not evidence for a cinema or projection room during the Walewski period.
The same schedule gives 870.31 m² as the usable floor area of the entire building. The public page uses this figure only to convey the scale of the undertaking; the detailed layout of the contemporary home will not be disclosed.
The programme of the future Video Library
Witness accounts
Recorded oral histories, preceded by the speaker's consent and a description of the circumstances of the interview.
Country houses on film
A guide to films in which a residence is more than scenery, accompanied by historical commentary.
Virtual visiting
Future panoramas and a 3D model enabling visitors to explore the architecture without compromising the privacy of the home.
Film as a source
Footage of restoration work is evidence of the building's condition on a particular day. Recordings will therefore carry a date, author, location and description of the stage of work. Editing must not obscure chronology. Visualisations of a proposed future appearance will be separated from documentation and labelled as simulations.
Demonstration player
The short scene below shows how the future Video Library will present a film together with its makers, date, provenance and legal status. Playback does not start automatically, and the file remains on the servers of an open archive.
Directed and performed by Edward F. Cline and Buster Keaton. Silent short comedy. Source: Wikimedia Commons; marked as public domain. Complete film and source record. The film has no documentary connection with Inczew; it demonstrates only how the future Video Library may work.
The pianist beneath the screenAn original, live-generated piano accompaniment in the style of silent cinema. It is not the soundtrack of any film.
The accompaniment is off and never starts automatically.
Charlie Chaplin — short screenings from the official archive
The portal does not copy films or third-party soundtracks. These three links lead to short clips published by the official Charlie Chaplin archive. Chaplin thus joins Buster Keaton while the source and rights remain clear.
Charlie hides Scraps
A short gag with Scraps the dog — a warm example of visual comedy that needs no dialogue.
WATCH IN THE OFFICIAL ARCHIVE →Charlie's nap
A brief scene showing Chaplin's precise pantomime and comic rhythm.
WATCH IN THE OFFICIAL ARCHIVE →Pancakes with the Kid
A domestic comedy scene with Chaplin and Jackie Coogan — a small film about everyday life and screen partnership.
WATCH IN THE OFFICIAL ARCHIVE →Why use the official archive? A film and a particular restoration, edit or score may have different legal statuses. The official pages leave control of each clip with its authorised publisher; the Inczew portal provides only a route to a lawful screening.
Polish productions — lawful sources
We do not copy other people's films to the portal server. The Cinema Room links to materials made available by Poland's National Film Archive – Audiovisual Institute (FINA) and other authorised institutions. Availability may change, so every screening retains a link to its source record.
Where to watch safely: Ninateka provides Polish films, documentaries, animation and recordings free of charge and without advertising. The FINA Digital Repository includes complete pre-war silent films, newsreels and restored archival material.
People with No Tomorrow
An early Polish silent melodrama rediscovered in a German archive — and a visual document of Warsaw life.
OPEN IN THE FINA REPOSITORY →The Daredevils
Leonard Buczkowski's film, also known as My, Pierwsza Brygada, combines drama with a historical spectacle of the first years of independence.
OPEN IN THE FINA REPOSITORY →We Shall Not Give Up the Land
A harvest-festival newsreel showing costumes, processions and vehicles. It is presented with a warning about the propagandistic character of the Polish Film Chronicle.
OPEN IN THE FINA REPOSITORY →The first Polish 16 mm projector
A short report about the projector's designers and its public demonstration — a bridge between film and the history of cinema technology.
OPEN IN THE FINA REPOSITORY →History of cinema — from moving images to digital restoration
The first public screenings, inventors' devices and short scenes. In the Polish lands Kazimierz Prószyński developed the pleograph.
Polish silent and then sound cinema flourished. Film became mass entertainment, a record of manners and a means of shaping shared imagination.
Production was rebuilt; the Polish Film Chronicle, auteur cinema and the Polish Film School emerged. Film served as art, testimony and entertainment, but also as propaganda.
New production and distribution models, digitised archives and film restoration have allowed endangered works to be viewed again through lawful services.
The history of cinema is also the history of projectors, film stock, sound, theatres, audiences, censorship and archives. This section will grow to include separate pages on silent film, pre-war comedy, newsreels, the Polish Film School and digital restoration.
Initial programme
Restoration chronicle
A short, dated compilation of changes to the palace, from the condition in which it was found to successive stages of restoration.
The park and three ponds
The landscape, rehabilitation of the surviving pond and the quiet everyday life of the park.
People of memory
Accounts by people who know Inczew, worked on the estate or helped save the palace.
The palace in 3D
A model based on post-2020 renovation documentation, with reconstructed layers clearly marked.
A feature film is not a document
Country-house scenes can help us understand ideas about landed society, but costume, scenery and behaviour remain subject to artistic interpretation. The Video Library will identify what a film presents convincingly and what it simplifies or treats anachronistically. Excerpts from other films will not be copied without permission; the portal may link to legal trailers, catalogues and platforms.
A private home, a public story
The virtual tour will present architecture and history without revealing sensitive details of the contemporary residence. The public route may include selected interiors, before-and-after comparisons and model views. More complete technical documentation will remain in the working archive.
Connected parts of the museum
The Cinema Room, 3D model and Music Cabinet offer three different entrances into the same story: image, space and sound. Go to the Music Cabinet →