Cultural policy in the Soviet bloc countries underwent rather abrupt changes during the first two post-war decades. The paper focuses mainly on the shifts between 1956 and 1960 in Poland and their effects on cinema culture. Specifically, the paper explains how the Polish cinema production and distribution was perceived from the perspective of the Soviet ministry of culture and the Soviet party bodies. Initiatives in the sphere of international co-productions, as well as three international conferences organised in 1957, 1958 and 1960 for representatives of the Soviet bloc´s film industries, will be interpreted as an instrument which the Soviet cultural functionaries attempted to use for guiding the national cinema culture in the “proper” direction. The specific position which the Polish cinema had from the Soviet point of view are be contextualized by a brief comparison with the Czechoslovak and East German cases. Both implemented and unrealized Polish co-productions are discussed as a sphere of cultural transfers, as well as a sphere for testing an effectivity of cultural control.