Boro, L'Île d'Amour

Kamila Kuc is a multimedia artist, curator and writer. Her films have screened in venues and at film festivals nationally and internationally: Whitechapel Gallery, British Film Institute, Institute of Contemporary Arts London, Anthology Film Archives New York, Ann Arbor Film Festival. She is the author and editor of numerous books and articles on experimental media, including Visions of Avant-Garde Film (Indiana University Press) and the co-founder, with Sam Jury, of Disasters of Peace - a creative initiative that encompasses research, writing, making and curating.

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: A Private UniverseKamila Kuc, Kuba Mikurda, Michał OleszczykChapter 1. Boro: Escape ArtistKuba MikurdaChapter 2. Borowczyk’s KunstkameraMarcin GiżyckiChapter 3. Animated Bodies: A Conversation Between Kuba Mikurda and Jakub WoynarowskiChapter 4. Cruel Imagination: Borowczyk’s Post-Traumatic SurrealismIwona KurzChapter 5. The Postcard Never Sent: Guy de Maupassant and Rosalie Prudent’s Cinematic ConfessionKamila KucChapter 6. Boro: The Guide for the PerplexedFernando F. CroceChapter 7. Borowczyk’s Serial Labyrinth: From Goto, Isle of Love (1968) to Behind Convent Walls (1977)James SnazellChapter 8. Immoral Toys: On Borowczyk’s A Private Collection (1974)Edwin CarelsChapter 9. The Beast with Two Backs: On Borowczyk’s The Beast (1975)Philip WarnellChapter 10. Laughter in the Doll House: On Victorian Surrealism in Walerian Borowczyk’s FilmsKamila WielebskaChapter 11. Enjoying Excess: A Bataillean Interpretation of Story of Sin (1975) by Walerian Borowczyk and Stefan ŻeromskiMarta RabikowskaChapter 12. The Beach, the Bubble and the Boudoir: The Meeting-Spaces of Walerian Borowczyk and André Pieyre de MandiarguesJonathan OwenChapter 13. Sex & the Sacred: The Obstacles to Desire Becoming its ObjectsJakub MajmurekChapter 14. Reflecting on The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Miss Osbourne (1981)Budd WilkinsChapter 15. The Perils of Emmanuelle: A Conversation between Simon Abrams, Odie Henderson, and Michał OleszczykChapter 16. Revisiting Love Rites (1988)Kevin LeeContributors BiographiesFilmography

“The contributors to this collection use new archival sources to provide a comprehensive map of Boro’s career and to reestablish his place in the history of Polish and European avant-garde and art cinema.  All the essays are well informed and clearly written; collectively, they provide valuable insights into Boro's often puzzling, sometimes scandalous motivations and productions.” • Choice“Boro, L'Île d'Amour will prove an essential companion for both those readers who wish to dive deeper into specific topics, and those looking to cherry-pick individual films …one of the qualities that Borowczyk valued most in film was its ability to capture perpetual motion. [This volume] does just that: it honors the artist in flux, finding fresh points of connection, without trying to pin him down.” • Cineaste“…a thought-provoking collection of different essays commenting on the life and films of a renowned Polish film director, Walerian Borowczyk… One of the strengths of this book is that the authors of the essays link Borowczyk’s artistic output with the social and artistic environment of Poland in which he grew up, and of France, where he spent most of his adult life.” • Slavic Review