CBK FAMA is a library joined with a cultural centre located in Psie Pole. The institution was established in 2006 as a branch of the Municipal Public Library, where the Fama cinema used to be. The cinema served as an inspiration for the name, neon, and, to some extent, our cultural program. To us, Fama has versatile dimensions, yet the core activities are the cinema, circus and literature. Throughout the year we offer you a wide range of interdisciplinary activities – laboratories, one-off and cyclic events.
We operate locally and we’re proud of it!
Our centre was created with the residents of Psie Pole in mind. Local activity is very important to us hence, we engage in projects set up by our community, especially by people from the Partnerstwo Zawidawie circle. We want to carry out the residents’ private initiatives too, and we’re open to your ideas! Remember, we like to keep our ears open to listen about your needs and suggestions – visit us in the office, write or call us. We want you to feel at home, safe and cosy. We’re also open to ideas coming from other parts of the city – if you’d like to start working with us, just send us your offer and we’ll happily consider it.
WHAT WE DO
CINEMA
Our cinematic activity refers to the Fama – the cinema venture from which we have inherited both the address and the neon welcoming our guests in the reception hall. The Fama existed between 1946 and mid-90s serving local residents with the latest film productions, providing memorable moments both to the old and the young. We want to follow this path, therefore our portfolio includes Polish and foreign productions for the audiences of all ages. Quality, variety and film education are our drivers. Cinematic activity in The Fama is not only screenings in four regular, thematic groups – accompanying events such as meetings with filmmakers, experts in film and other fields, open discussions with our audience and children’s workshops spice up the experience. Our viewing hall seats 170, in the summer we arrange open-air screenings with the background view of the Psie Pole roofs. All screenings and events are free of charge.
CIRCUS
A circus-type cultural centre, this is how we identify ourselves as there is a multitude of new-circus related activities that happen in our premises – the New Circus Centre. Read more about circus workshops, materclasses, Outdoor Circus Festival CYRKOPOLE and creative residencies in a separate section.
LITERATURE
The third area of our activity is literature. The ground floor library boasts an impressive collection, also including volumes in English. In the Library section you will find more details plus tips on how to register with a library and answers toFAQs.
Our literary aspirations bring about meetings with authors, educational projects and cyclic events. Literature lovers have a chance to discuss literature and books within the Book Debating Club – currently Fama is home to three such groups! To celebrate the World Book Day, each year we organise a special event, Intense Literary Saturday, during which you can participate in a series of children’s workshops, performative reading, various performances and screenings of film adaptations. Polish Independence Day in Fama is, naturally, literature oriented as we call it – after Gombrowicz – Fatherland-Sonland. The anniversary of regaining independence by Poland ideally sets the scene for looking at Polish literary tradition to make room for it in more contemporary contexts.
From the beginning of Fama, together with the artists gathered in KEJOS Collective, we develop the theatre-circus concept called New Circus Centre which encopasses: workshops, artists’ residencies, theatre-circus productions and the new-circus festival Cyrkopole.
The calendar of recurring labs includes afternoon circus-themed activites where participants learn stage performance and presence, various circus techniques: jugglery, balancing, acrobatics etc., as well as the skills of concentrating and self-discipline. Children as young as 7 can start training with us in the Little New Circus Academy. For teens we’ve prepared Circus-Theatre Workshops, whereas adult can join the Open Training Space. Here jugglers, dancers, performers and artists working in any other field, both amateur and professional, can meet and exchange ideas, inspirations and skills. Find out more:
CYRKOPOLE
The Outdoor Circus Festival CYRKOPOLE plays the role of an annual overview, a culmination of the whole year’s work done sin the New Circus Centre. The festival has found its place within the Wrocław Festival’s framework and is the biggest open-air artistic event in Psie Pole. Primarily, it is organised to integrate the local community and to present the wealth of the new-circus art in Poland and abroad. For many years, it has served as an overview of new circus in Central and Eastern Europe. The initiative steadily grows in scale – with each new edition the repertoire becomes even richer with abundant of-highest-quality performances from various corners of the world. This gives the festival distinctively international feel. So far we have seen artists from Czechia, Hungary, Brazil, Argentina, Spain, Germany and Singapore.
The programe is meticulously prepared to enable everyone’s participation free of charge. Cyrkopole is an event the local community awaits a whole year long! Three days of streets and public spaces turned into new-circus stages, fire shows, workshops & animations, all wrapped in colourful light installations even a week prior to the event – giving the district a truly festive feel when everybody senses that Wrocław Festival is truly near.
If you’re a new-circus artist and want to perform during the Festival, let us know! Contact the event coordinator – Daria Ławniczak: katarzyna@fama.wroc.pl
Masterclass workshops
A lot of effort is put into creating an educational offer that satisfies the needs of new-circus artists who are both at the beginning of their path and those more experienced, too. The masterclass workshops will suit those of you who want to continually develop skills and learn new tools useful in clownery, jugglery, balancing, air and park acrobatics. Together with the artists from Kejos The-At-Er we organised workshops of multi-participant jugglery that were led by Artur Perskawiec and Mateusz Kownacki, air acrobatics workshops with Linda Sander, jugglery workshops with Emiliano Alessi and acrobatics workshops taught by Paweł Pater and Jacek Marks from Everest Production Foundation.
Artistic residency
Through our New Circus Centre we seek collaboration with artists of new circus, theatre, dance, movement etc. Creators are welcome to use the premises along with technical facilities of CBK Fama.
In 2018, as part of their residency, artists from KEJOS Collective staged A city that never existed (Miasto, którego nie było) to celebrate Lublin’s 700th anniversary. The spectacle was presented in both cities – Wrocław and Lublin. CYRKOPOLE’s third edition in 2019 premiered When You See the Moon (Kiedy widzisz księżyc) – a monodrama by a French artist Youri Grégoire, also produced in Fama.
If you are an artist, a performer, a circus artist needing support and access to facilities required to produce your own project, contact us now!
This part of Fama encompasses the 11th branch of the Municipal Public Library in Wrocław, with a catalogue including ca. 30 000 volumes. Holders of a library card have access to the vast collection of all public libraries in Wrocław (no need to register separately). By entering our library, you gain access to fiction, belles-lettres and popular science literature for adults, teens and children. Comic books for children, English language literature, films and audiobooks – borrow whatever you like. Our collection is regularly updated with latest titles. On top of that, ibuk Libra and Ebsco platforms are also available.
The section of English-language literature is mostly belles-lettres literature (novels of manners, detective stories and fantasy). You will also find a selection of children’s books in two language versions. This part of our collection bears the reference number 82=111.