Let me start by saying I’m no movie buff.
If it weren’t for Ola loving to watch movies and series, I probably wouldn’t even have a subscription to any streaming platform—and I wouldn’t miss it much either. Sure, it’s hard to find anything truly terrible these days (storytelling has become a pretty well-oiled machine), but it’s even harder to come across something so unique that it sticks with you for life. Personally, I’d be totally fine with a flash drive loaded with my all-time favorite films and series, which I could just rewatch endlessly until the end of time.
Mostly older stuff: The X-Files, Friends, Seksmisja (Sexmission), It (1990 version), Truman Show, Dragon Ball, Seinfeld, Northern Exposure, Twin Peaks, Fawlty Towers, Forrest Gump, Dzień świra (Day of the Wacko), Kingsajz (King Size), Niewinni czarodzieje (Innocent Sorcerers). A few more recent ones too: IT Crowd, Mr. Robot, The Office, Battlestar Galactica. And a handful of recent masterpieces: 1670, Castlevania (Nocturne too, but especially the original—Dracula’s fight scene is one of the most epic things entertainment has ever offered), Arcane.
I visited the Muzeum Kinematografii w Łodzi (Museum of Cinematography) on a whim, after seeing online that they had props from Kingsajz (1987)—those oversized objects meant to make actors look tiny. I absolutely adore that film! Actually, I love that whole era of Polish cinema, when films were being made our own way, not just copying Hollywood.
But the museum had way more than just that—so much cool film-related stuff. Inside, there are loads of exhibits (apparently around fifty thousand), all really nicely labeled. Old cameras, vintage viewing gear, flyers, movie posters, newspaper clippings, photographs, looping videos, props, costumes, sets, miniatures.
One of the coolest parts of the tour is the Kaiserpanorama—basically this big old machine for viewing stereoscopic photos. The one in Łódź was built by August Fuhrmann around 1900. It’s the only original one in Poland and one of only six left in the whole world.
It works by placing two nearly identical photos side by side, with a slight shift in perspective. A divider between the lenses ensures each eye sees only one photo, and your brain puts the images together into a 3D-like effect. It’s seriously worth experiencing—it’s wild to think people were checking out 3D photos over a hundred years before the Nintendo 3DS dropped.
If you’ve booked a guided tour (130 PLN for a group of up to 15 people, plus a 28 PLN ticket), you can sit at one of the 25 stations and the whole mechanism will rotate the photos for you. Solo visitors just have to hop from chair to chair to see them all.
I’m not sure how often the photos get swapped out, but when I was there, the images were all stills from old Polish films.
One of the stations—featuring Miś Uszatek (Teddy Floppy Ear)—had a broken right eyepiece, so you could peek inside and clearly see the divider, the light source, and how the image plate continued to the left.
Among the exhibits, there’s also a stereoscope viewer made by H.C. White & Co.—a kind of portable Kaiserpanorama. It basically looks like a VR headset, except instead of screens, there’s a slide with two slightly shifted photos and the usual divider to create the 3D effect.
At this point, I have two things to mention.
First: when I visited, on May 22, the whole museum was dotted with Moomin plushies as part of a little scavenger hunt for kids. It tied in with the opening of the exhibition Muminki: drzwi są zawsze otwarte (The Moomins: The Doors Are Always Open), which was kicking off later that same day (I’m definitely planning to check that out!).
Second: a totally separate attraction is the building itself—Pałac Scheiblerów (Scheibler Palace). Of course, the palace has been renovated to function as a museum, including a new staircase and elevator for accessibility. But one part of the palace remains almost completely untouched—with original furniture, decor, and tiled stoves.
And that part blew me away.
Caretaker of that section is super friendly and full of fascinating tidbits, which she shares with real passion. I’ve been visiting Łódź for thirteen years now, so I’ve always known it was once a big textile hub and had super-wealthy factory owners. But I’ll admit, I didn’t really grasp the scale of their wealth—or influence—until that day.
This palace belonged to Karol Scheibler, the most powerful of the textile factory owners who turned Łódź from a tiny dots on a map into the third-largest city in Poland. To give you a sense of the scale: Scheibler was the biggest textile industrialist in the entire Russian Empire, handling 60% of the industry in the Kingdom of Poland. We’re talking about a guy who, in today’s terms, would’ve been a multibillionaire. A guy who had his own power plant to supply electricity to his factories and palace—back when Łódź didn’t even have electricity. A guy who had 36 lightbulbs in just the dining room—at a time when one bulb cost a year’s wages for the average Łódź resident. A guy who built the railway tracks and platforms that connected Łódź to Warszawa (Warsaw, polish capitol). A guy who funded churches of multiple faiths, just because it was good PR. When the authorities were too cheap to invest in Łódź, Scheibler and his crew just threw money at the problem. He, his kids, and later his widow supported the community by building schools and hospitals, setting up a fire brigade, a library and shops.
The oldest item in the palace is this tile (below), imported from abroad—and the entire stove (above) was built just to house it.
One of the stoves has carved fish with gaping mouths, through which hot air used to blow out.
In another room, there’s a cabinet brought in from a famous workshop—it even has ceramic pull-out trays to place hot pots on without damaging the wood! Scheibler’s daughter loved it so much, they built the whole room around it just to match the cabinet.
What impressed me the most was Karol Scheibler’s office. Which isn’t surprising—that room was designed to make visitors instantly understand that its owner was someone to be taken seriously.
I’ll admit, my chat with the exhibit guide got me so hyped I went home and binged Wikipedia pages, then bought the e-book Łódź. Ziemia wymyślona (Łódź. A Land Imagined) by Błażej Ciarkowski, which I’m now reading.
The props, sets, and costume section was also super cool. Even as a casual film watcher I found some gems! I was genuinely thrilled when I saw drawers from Szuflandia (Drawerland)—the underground world from Kingsajz.
And then there were the costumes from Seksmisja (Sexmission)—one of my all-time favorite films. On the left was a schoolgirl uniform from the Women’s League, and on the right, of course, Lamia Reno’s outfit—played by Bożena Stryjkówna, who looked stunning and created an iconic, super memorable character.
It was also fun to see the gnome costume from Kingsajz, and the title character’s outfit from Podróże Pana Kleksa (Travels of Mr. Blot).
Another standout was the set design by Ryszard Kaja for the film Märchenbilder. Obrazki z bajek (Märchenbilder. Fairy Tale Pictures, 1998, dir. Marek Skrobecki).
There were also replica neon signs from old Łódź cinemas.
And a great collection of movie posters.
The top floor houses the permanent exhibit Pałac pełen bajek (A Palace Full of Fairy Tales). There, you’ll find lots of characters from classic Polish animated films: Bolek and Lolek, Reksio, Miś Uszatek (Teddy Floppy Ear), Miś Colargol (Teddy Colargol), Smok Wawelski (Wawel Dragon), Bartolini Bartłomiej, and more.
