Edmund Libański was a well-known promoter o f science and technology in Lwow and the region of Eastern Galicia, active in the years 1901-1928. Apart from his work as a bridge-constraction engineer and educationalist, he also became known as a journalist, writer o f popular science books, playwright and translator o f dramatic plays, satirist, owner of a cinema, promoter o f aviation, aeroplane constructor and pilot, as well as an ardent activist o f the Polish Socialist Party (PPS). The most important facet o f his activity, however, came in the form of lectures and publications aimed at a wide audience of lay people and intended to make the public aware of the new possibilities offered by the development of technology, the wide access to education and culture, and the overall democratization o f public life. The famous lectures given by Libański (numbering in hundreds) left a strong imprint on the cultural and educational life o f Lwow o f the period. The lectures were very well prepared and presented in a dynamic and modem way. At first, Libański illustrated his lectures with photographs and slides, but later, starting from 1908, he began to replace them with documentary films specially selected for the presentations. He also gave public presentations of various inventions; in 1911, for example, he organized and took part in a flight o f an air-balloon over Lwow, an important event in the life of the city’s inhabitants. In the years 1907-1911 Libański was active in developing the film industry in Lwow and its surroundings. He was in charge of two educational cinemas, “Urania” and “Helios”, and he was the owner o f an itinerant cinema that showed films all over the region, starting from Lwow up to Krakow. The film shows, in which an important part was played by “shots of nature” as well as by films dealing with the latest technology, were supplemented with popular-science “open lectures” delivered by Libański and special guests invited by Libański from among the scientific and technical elite of Lwow. Libański’s formula for popularizing science and technology with the use of the cinema at the beginning of the 20th century, i.e. the idea of using films for educational purposes, yielded excellent results. The method that Libański used for explaining to the public the things they could see on the screen was the best possible one in the early stages of cinematography; it was particularly effective at a time when the new public had to grow accustomed to the cinema, and suited for people who were only starting to enter the world o f culture and education thanks to the use of film. The approach to the use o f the cinema and film adopted by Libański, only a few years after the beginnings o f cinematography, was highly innovative and unique on a world scale.