Vabank is a 1981 Polish comedy heist film written and directed by Juliusz Machulski, set in 1934 Warsaw (although actually filmed in Łódź and Piotrków Trybunalski). The film received several awards and nominations, among them: Polish Film Festival 1981 – Best Debut Director Mystfest 1982 – Best Film The film's name is Polish for Va banque, a gambling term for when one is betting to win or lose all. Plot In October 1934, a famous safe cracker in Warsaw criminal circles and also a jazz trumpeter, Henryk Kwinto, is released from a prison, where he has spent the past six years. After arriving home, he discovers that his wife has already found a substitute for him in the face of a police commissioner named Karelicki. Kwinto removes hidden roll of banknotes out of the chair's leg, places his key to the apartment on a table and leaves. Near the city gates he is met by two younger petty criminals, brothers Moks and Nuta who have successfully debuted by robbing a jewel store and are now wishing to have the legendary safe-cracker as an accomplice. Kwinto by taking out of his pocket a mouthpiece of trumpet asserts that they had mistaken him for someone else and he is a musician. Although they seem to be confused, the brothers nonetheless tell him the address of their automobile shop in case if "Mr Musician would be willing to play together with them". Kwinto rents a hotel room. Soon he is visited by his former accomplice and now a successful banker, Gustaw Kramer who informs him that six years ago Kwinto was arrested not by chance. Kramer who was caught in the act, then agreed to lure the elusive safe-cracker into a trap set up by the police. As a compensation for moral damages he brought Kwinto 45,000 złoty considering his betrayal as resolved. In response Kwinto advises not to tell him the address of his bank, to which Kramer is confident in the invulnerability of the bank's own safes reacts with a sneer and uses the phrase "ear of a herring" (, an idiom, similar to English "Goose egg") hinting at the impossibility of robbing his bank. Kwinto goes to visit a musician named Tadeusz Rychliński, with whom he performed in a band at least six years earlier. From the wife of Tadeusz, Marta, he learns about the death of his friend. Shortly