LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Andrzej Wajda: Poland Wajda
built 349 days ago
A brilliant statement from Andrzej Wajda, Ashes and Diamonds illustrates the conflict of idealism and instinct in this story of a young resistance fighter who assassinates the wrong man at the close of World War II. With Zbigniew Cybulski. In Polish with English subtitles. Poland, 1958, 105 mins.
Source:
Synopsis: Legendary Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda adapts a nationally treasured epic poem to the silver screen. For 400 years, Lithuania and Poland were linked, until the country was partitioned in 1795 by aggressive nations at its borders -- Russia, Prussia, and the Austrian empire. At that point, theRead More
Source:
In 1980, when the Solidarity Independent Trade Union was created, Wajda was commissioned by his faithful audience, the Gdansk shipyard workers and founders of the trade union, to make Człowiek z Żelaza (Man of Iron, 1980). The dramatic fate of Mateusz Birkut's son took the form of a propaganda film, which proved to be an artistic failure. On the other hand, Wajda shared with his compatriots and viewers abroad his knowledge of contemporary history and its mechanisms. Man of Iron, for which Wajda was granted the Golden Palm at the Festival in Cannes, closed symbolically the period of the cinema of social unrest; it was ... a prophetic work. In the film, Wajda applied the "strategy of a fortune-teller" because he doubted the good will of the authorities who signed the social agreement with the striking workers. Unfortunately, his vision materialised some months after the film's premiere when martial law was proclaimed in Poland starting one of the gloomiest periods in its post-war history.
Source:
Synopsis: Sampson is one of several Andrzej Wajda films harking back to his youth during the Nazi Occupation of Poland. Many of these concern not only the struggle between good and evil, but ... between passive and impassive. The hero is a Jewish youth. He, lRead More
Source:
Born March 6, 1926 in Suwalki in the northeast of Poland, Mr. Wajda experienced the Nazi invasion at age 13, and joined the anti-Nazi resistance movement at age 16. After the liberation, he studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow and then dramaturgy at Leon Schiller State Theatre and Film School in Lodz. After graduating in 1954, Mr. Wajda made a series of works: "A Generation," "Canal" and "Ashes and Diamonds," the so-called Three Resistance Series, which as its theme carrys the tragic experiences of his countrymen during and after the war. These works give a vivid image of the way fighting and survival situations affect human begins. These films won worldwide acclaim.
Source:
To commemorate the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II, the CFI is proud to present this justly acclaimed “war quartet” of films by Poland’s greatest filmmaker, Andrzej Wajda. Born in 1926, Wajda is Poland’s leading filmmaker and one of the major figures in postwar East European cinema. The son of a cavalry officer who was killed in World War II, he became a Resistence fighter at the age of 16. After the Liberation, he studied painting at the Kraców Academy of Fine Arts, but in 1950 he decided on a film career and enrolled at the Lód? film school. He established himself as a key figure in the new Polish cinema with his first feature film, A Generation (1954).
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Poland Wajda