Bibliogr. s. 131-133

The interwar years - in contrast to the period of the partitions in Poland and the Polish People's Republic - was a time of an openness to queer sexual identities. Although queer issues within realistic plots were not present on Polish screens, filmmakers used other ways to smuggle in these themes, including through cross-dressing musical comedies, male homosocial communities, diva cult, camp and glamour. Some of these strategies were employed by Michał Waszyński, the director of the iconic Dybuk/The Dybbuk (1937), whose films and biography can be read as the prehistory of Polish queer cinema. This article explores not only queer codes that were used by the director to hide his non-heterosexual desires (queer identification with divas: Druga młodość/Second Youth [1938]), but also his biographical masquerade, which for many years was obscured. The films and biography of Waszyński prove that queer issues were present in interwar Polish culture.