FEATURES:
Description:
The Hourglass Sanatorium (Polish: Sanatorium pod klepsydrą) is a 1973 Polish drama film directed by Wojciech Jerzy Has, starring Jan Nowicki, Tadeusz Kondrat, Mieczysław Voit, Halina Kowalska and Gustaw Holoubek. It is also known as The Sandglass in English-speaking countries. The story follows a young Jewish man who visits his father in a mystical sanatorium where time does not behave normally. The film is an adaptation of Bruno Schulz's story collection Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass. It won the Jury Prize at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival.

A young man, Józef (Jan Nowicki, O-Bi, O-Ba: The End of Civilization), takes a train into the middle of nowhere to visit his dying father, who he understands is residing in a sanatorium. On arrival he discovers a giant building crumbling into ruin, with the patients seemingly left to their own devices, and time itself behaving in strange, non-linear ways. A doctor then informs him that his father is both alive and not-alive, beginning an epic hypnagogic journey through the hospital and his own mind, with each room unlocking its own sinister, hallucinatory world. Adapted to the screen from a book of Bruno Schulz short stories by visionary director Wojciech Has (The Saragossa Manuscript), the film overcame fear and scepticism from the Polish authorities when Has smuggled the film out of the country to premiere it at Cannes, where it would go on to win the Jury Prize. The Hourglass Sanatorium has come to be regarded as one of the greatest Polish films of all time, with its surreal structure and staggering feats of production design proving hugely influential on arthouse and fantasy filmmakers alike.

4K UHD & BLU-RAY DUAL FORMAT SPECIAL FEATURES
New 4K restoration from the original camera negative, presented in Dolby Vision HDR
4K UHD and Blu-ray presentation of the feature; world premiere on 4K UHD
Uncompressed mono PCM audio
New audio commentary by Polish film expert Michael Brooke (2026)
Archival interview with production designer Jerzy Skarzynski by filmmaker Jerzy Wójcik (1997)
Accordion - acclaimed early short film from Wojciech Has (1947)
Newly improved English subtitle translation
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by critic Ela Bittencourt
Limited edition of 5000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings