CENT-03. Godspeed, Los Polacos!

USA, Feature Documentary, 2020, 88 min

Winner at Banff and Krakow Mountain Film Festivals

Too often we forget that we stand on the shoulders of the giants that have come before us. Banff Mountain Film Festival

University students Andrzej, Piotr and Jurek were bored with kayaking the Class 3 rapids of Poland, so they somehow wrangled permission from Soviet authorities to kayak and raft the Amazon. They arrived in Brazil, full of na├â╞Æ├é┬»ve optimism, but dirt-poor and with rafts and three ratty homemade kayaks. The rest is neck-snapping, wildly improbable history. Godspeed, Los Polacos! tells the story of five university students on the edge of adulthood who skillfully pull the strings of the Soviet system and find themselves on an expedition in the Americas with a six-wheeled military truck, homemade equipment and little to no whitewater skills. The story follows their epic two-year journey that culminates in the record-breaking first descent of the world’s deepest canyon, and finds the adventurers in Soviet crosshairs after they leverage their newfound fame to fight for democracy in the Eastern Bloc.

Directed by Adam Nawrot

Boulder Premiere