Łagów

Łagów is referred to as a pearl of Lubusz Province. It is a small town, situated in the picturesque area of the Łagów Landscape Park, between two lakes: Trześniowskie Lake and Łagowskie Lake. Historically speaking, Łagów was first mentioned in documents in the year 1251, when the village was property of the Knights Templar. After that, it was handed over to the masters from Brandenburg and became property of the it Order of Saint John (the Johanniter Order). In the 14^th Century, knights of the order started erecting a castle on the hill overlooking both lakes. Later on, when the settlement was granted the right to organise fairs, Łagów started to thrive. Thanks to its dynamic development, the town was granted its borough rights in 1727, which were lost three centuries later, in 1931. Łagów is a birthplace of Gerhard Domagk, a German pathologist and bacteriologist, who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1939.

After the end of the Second World War, Łagów was incorporated into the territory of Poland. The town was spared destruction during the war, which helped preserves its historic and recreational nature. Among the most significant monuments still preserved in Łagów, we can admire the castle of Johanniter, the Polish Gate, the Markish Gate, the St John the Baptist Church dating back to the 18^th Century, or a railway flyover from 1909.

Łagów is home to the oldest film festival in Poland, namely Lubuskie Lato Filmowe (Lubusz Film Summer), which started in 1969. Film screenings take place inside an amphitheatre situated by Trześniowskie Lake.

Filmmakers have always been in love with the town and t has often been chosen as a location to shoot films. In 1954, Łagów was visited by a film crew led by film director Jan Rybkowski, who transformed the pear of the Lubusz Land into the German town of Lyx, which witnesses the last days of the Second World War in the war drama ‘Godziny nadziei / The Hours of Hope’. In 1973, Janusz Nasfeter came to Łagów to shoot the film ‘Nie będę Cię kochać / I Won’t Love You’. In 1990, the town was the centre of the events taking place in the film ‘Pensjonat Słoneczny blask / Pension Sonnenchein’ directed by Filip Bajon.