Andrzej Wajda

Fleeing from despair after losing those dearest to him, the hero hides in a safe land of memories, where time stands still and all those dear to him are alive.

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A documentary celebrating the work of Walerian Borowczyk, a director of unparalleled sensitivity, revered in the 1970s, who was later labeled as a maker of erotic movies.

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A few months before his death, Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda (1926-2016) revisited his work in an assembly room of the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing, established in Warsaw in 2002.

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A documentary about Elzbieta Czyzewska, one of Poland's greatest actresses, a beauty icon of the 1960s, who died in 2010. She had a great career in Poland, but the filmmakers focus more on her attempts to make a name for herself as an actress in America, after her sudden emigration to the United States with her husband, American journalist David Halberstam. Friends and acquaintances of Elzbieta Czyzewska speak without embellishment about her failed marriage, her battle with alcoholism won after years, and her attempts to return to Poland. This is a story about the fate of the actress at different stages of her career: at the top, at the bottom and in between.

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An abandoned tumbledown theater in the outback of Paraíba state is the initial setting of a film about cinema, which explores the testimonials of the novelist and playwright Ariano Suassuna and other filmmakers such as Ruy Guerra, Julio Bressane, Ken Loach, Andrzej Wajda, Karim Ainouz, José Padilha, Hector Babenco, Vilmos Zsigmond, Béla Tarr, Gus Van Sant and Jia Zhangke. They all respond to two basic questions: why do they make movies and why do they serve the seventh art. The filmmakers share their thoughts about time, narrative, rhythm, light, movement, the meaning of tragedy, the audience‘s desires and the boundaries with other forms of art.

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The unique story of film directors who managed to critic the Communist regime while being produced by the State: this is Polish cinema's golden age, in the 1970s. Director Ania Szczepanska, born in Poland and raised in France, meets prominent filmmakers, producers, actors such as Andrzej WAJDA, Marcel LOZINSKI, Krzyszstof ZANUSSI, Kristina JANDA, Ryszard BUGAJSKI and confronts them the testimonies of the State men of that time. Through unknown archives, forgotten documentaries and excerpts of cult films, she relates how the Solidarnosc people ended up in Cannes.

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At the Old Theater in Krakow Wajda staged a play in 1971, based on Dostoevsky's novel "Demons". In this documentary Wajda tells the story of the unique play that went on uninterrupted for 10 years despite opposition from the authorities.

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An interview with film director Roman Polanski conducted during his period of house arrest, discussing his life and work.

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A feature-length documentary on the life and work of jazz musician and composer Krzysztof Komeda.

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The film is a portrait of Zygmunt Samosiuk, a great forgotten cinematographer, who died in 1983. As a director of photography he worked on such films as The Birch Wood, Landscape Afterthe Battle and Austeria. He introduced, among others, hand‑held camera shots, colour lights and shooting at minimum exposure. Reminiscences of his colleagues and friends, including Andrzej Wajda and Piotr Szulkin, show a gifted artist and a modest man who valued his work above all.

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History of a fashion rebellion in communist Poland. The film shares the experiences of those who were singled out as ideological 'saboteurs' by the socialist authorities. The documentary presents the stories and opinions of stylish personalities of the day.

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A record of a few months of struggle on the set, showing an atmosphere of work and a picture of immense film machinery, and at same time presenting the truest and intimate portrait of the Master of Polish Cinema, the Oscar winner.

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The making-of featurette of Andrzej Wajda's 2007 film Katyń.

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In the summer of 1939, people enjoyed the good weather, ignoring politics and pessimistic predictions. Images of everyday life that was about to change dramatically in a Europe in turmoil.

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As an aging woman married to a workaholic doctor by chance meets a young man who makes her feel young again. All of this is films by a director making a film about her which cuts in and out of the on camera and off camera drama.

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The main character of "Żyłem siedemnaście razy" reflects on his childhood in Gwoździec and tells a story about the beginning of his career as a filmmaker.

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In February, 1945, Primo Levi (1919-1987) and other Auschwitz survivors set off for home. The journey took more then eight months. Sixty years later, a film crew retraces Levi's steps. Levi's words, mainly from "The Truce" (1963), tell us what he experienced. In turn, we see Poland's hollow post-war factories, nationalism in the Ukraine, Soviet-style Communism in Belarus, the abandoned town of Prypiat (Chernobyl), poverty and emigration from Moldavia, Italian factories in Romania, and on across Hungary and Slovakia to Munich where Levi's rage found no listeners. Then home to Turin. An aged Mario Rigoni Stern remembers his friend. What has changed? Some issues of the war remain unsettled.

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A 2005 novella film created to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Solidarity movement. It consists of 13 10-minute shorts. There are various forms: mini-feature, music video, documentary, animation, interview.

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Insights on Ashes and Diamonds (1958) from the director Andrzej Wajda, filmmaker Janusz "Kuba" Morgenstern, and film critic Dr. Jerzy Plazewski.

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Interview with political scientist and social activist Jan Nowak-Jezioranski by film director Andrzej Wajda.

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Andrzej Wajda on the 50th anniversary of his film debut.

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Film about the work of Ukrainian film director Kira Muratova.

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Andrzej Wajda documentary about Polish film.

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Andrzej Munk was one of the leading directors in Polish cinema. Friends and collaborators share their memories about this stunning artist and his premature tragic death.

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An attempt to summarize the director's life and work to date, starting from his early youth and ending with his work on "Pan Tadeusz".

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The documentary talks about the origins, development and achievements of the Polish film school. People from the environment of the "Filmówka" in Łódź, among others. Wanda Jakubowska, Jerzy Kawalerowicz, Antoni Bohdziewicz, Janusz Morgenstern or Kazimierz Kutz. The film is richly illustrated with archival materials and the first films of the school. The beginnings of the Łódź Film Festival begin in Krakow with the Young Film Workshop; On May 6, 1945, at Józefitów 16 production facility of the Polish Film Production Company, an inaugural meeting is held. After numerous transformations, in July 1946 the Young Film Workshop and the Film Training Course began activities, which can be considered as the beginning of state film education in post-war Poland. The later fate of the school is already connected with Łódź; July 16, 1948, the act of establishing the Film School was signed.

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The film reveals the mechanisms of the communist institution of censorship. Famous filmmakers - Kazimierz Kutz, Andrzej Wajda, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Filip Bajon and Marcel Lozinski - talk about their contacts and experiences with censors, how their films were censored, what parts were considered contrary to the ideology of the socialist state. These interferences were often of an absurd nature. At the same time, the filmmakers mention how much of the intended content they managed to smuggle out. The film is also an attempt to analyze and summarize the role of censorship in a totalitarian state and its impact on culture and art.

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A famous Polish journalist presents a problem for the powers-that-be when he displays his full political skill and knowledge on a television show featuring questions and answers on a world conference by a panel of journalists. His enemies take away his privileges when he is away. The shock of being "unwanted" parallels a deeper disappointment in his private life: his wife has an affair with a jealous young rival, and after 15 years of marriage and two daughters wants a divorce. She offers no explanations as he tries to untie these problems himself. All the moves he makes are the wrong ones. He takes on drinking heavily with students eager to attend his seminar after discovering the class has been canceled. The journalist, once suave and commanding, is reduced to silence.

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Three-part film centered around a film being made by a group of young directors. In the first a working-class girl finishes school and has her first love affair, which ends badly. In the second a provincial boy with dreams of life in the theater has an affair with his boss' wife. They meet during the film's screen tests.

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Marcello Mastroianni, Isabelle Adjani, Alain Delon, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen... the biggest stars in cinema were welcomed by Christian Defaye on his show Spécial cinéma. Between intimate confessions from actors and immersion in the world of the greatest filmmakers, Christian Defaye took viewers on a journey into the fascinating world of cinema for nearly thirty years.

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In 1945, as Stalin sets his hands over Poland, famous painter Wladislaw Strzeminski refuses to compromise on his art with the doctrines of social realism. Persecuted, expelled from his chair at the University, he's eventually erased from the museums' walls. With the help of some of his students, he starts fighting against the Party and becomes the symbol of an artistic resistance against intellectual tyranny.

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Andrzej Wajda mentions Andrzej Wróblewski (1927-1957) as a painter and friend. It tells about a man facing the challenges of the epoch and dramatically searching for his space. Wróblewski, seen through the eyes of Wajda, is a genius who had to wait a long time for recognition, but also did not fully recognize his own greatness. Their paths crossed right after the war, when they both studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. Born in Vilnius, the young artist studied at the faculty of painting and sculpture, he also studied art history at the Jagiellonian University. The film was produced on the occasion of the exhibition of the same title organized at the Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology in Krakow in 2015.

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A theatrical performance of the Helena Modrzejewska National Stary Theatre in Krakow recorded for TVP Kultura.

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In this documentary, Andrzej Wajda presents a biography of the famous filmmaker and his long-time collaborator, Edward Klosinski. He was an outstanding cinematographer. Among others, his wife Krystyna Janda and closest friends, as well as the director himself, talk about his extraordinary work. The film also uses excerpts from many major productions that Klosinski took part in creating.

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As an aging woman married to a workaholic doctor by chance meets a young man who makes her feel young again. All of this is films by a director making a film about her which cuts in and out of the on camera and off camera drama.

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On September 1st, 1939, Nazi Germany invades Poland, unleashing World War II. On September 17th, the Soviet Red Army crosses the border. The Polish army, unable to fight on two fronts, is defeated. Thousands of Polish men, both military and government officials, are captured by the invaders. Their fate will only be known several years later.

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A 2005 novella film created to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Solidarity movement. It consists of 13 10-minute shorts. There are various forms: mini-feature, music video, documentary, animation, interview.

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A winter day at a Polish castle, half owned by a fatalistic notary and half by a volcanic old soldier's niece. The old soldier, Cupbearer, and the notary are sworn enemies, which may doom the love between the niece, Klara, and the notary's son, Waclaw. On this day, the tongue-tied Cupbearer asks a braggart courtier, Papkin, to sue on his behalf for the hand of the widow Hanna. Papkin succeeds and

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During the German occupation of a small Polish town, Franciszek Kłos, a lowly local policeman, will stop at nothing to become a Volksdeutsche. Eager to prove his loyalty, he zealously carries out the occupiers' orders. What begins as administrative compliance soon escalates when he commits his first murder of a fellow Pole. Condemned to death by the Polish underground, Kłos outwardly shrugs off the sentence while quietly drowning his growing fear in alcohol. As his inhibitions crumble, he descends deeper into violence—participating in the roundup and execution of hidden Jews, and earning a reputation for brutality even among the SS.

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The film tells about the period of Polish history in the 20s of the last century, when the fragile government of the country fell, and a man of the people came to the fore. In fact, he turned out to be a cunning populist and an immoral politician, ready for any tricks for the sake of his goals.

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Romance brings two warring families together in this historical drama. As citizens fight for independence in 1810s Lithuania, Tadeusz, the son of a murderer, and Zosia, a young woman, come together for a wedding against a backdrop of changing politics, ancient traditions, and the uncertain future of a country.

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During the Nazi era, a Jewish woman on the run takes a trolley which passes near the Warsaw ghetto, where the uprising battle is taking place, and some passengers are struck by stray bullets. They take temporary refuge in an empty building, and there she has a chance meeting with her ex-fiancé. He offers to put her up--that is, hide her--for a few days. He's now married, a professional who lives in an idyllic suburb reached by a trolley that runs through the woods. His wife seems more committed to putting up the fugitive than he is. The story involves the neighbors, the building owner who avoids involvement and seeks solace in classic poetry, and the super and his suspicious wife.

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Andrzej Wajda's Japanese-language film based on the last chapter of Dostoevsky's Idiot, in which Prince Myshkin and Rogozhin return to the past in a conversation over the dead body of Nastassya Filippovna. Bando Tamasaburo, regarded as one of the most outstanding female impersonators in Japanese theater, plays the dual role of Myshkin and Nastassya.

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A Polish Resistance fighter who survived the Nazi years cannot accept the new Communist power.

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In Stalinist Poland, cabaret singer Tonia decides to spend the evening drinking with a group of friends. The next morning, she awakes to find that, for reasons unknown to her, she has been jailed as a political prisoner. As prison officials interrogate, torture and humiliate her, she fights for survival and to maintain her innocence by refusing to sign a false confession. As her years of imprisonment pass, her relationship with her captors grows more complicated.

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Russia, 1870. A group of young anarchist revolutionaries set out to overthrow the Czarist regime through violence. Their attacks create a climate of psychosis and mutual distrust among the population, but in reality, both revolutionaries and repressors are being manipulated by a diabolical individual.

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Former student Raskolnikov is pushed to murder when struggling to pay the rent on his apartment. When the murder is being investigated by the police, Raskolnikov struggles between trying to hide his guilt and the pressure to confess.

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Set in the summer months preceding the September 1939 outbreak of World War II in Polish part of Lithuania. A young highschool lad, Witek, is hoping to pass the entrance exams to the university. His love interest is Alina, his high-school colleague.

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In May of 1983, a man turns 49 and, with his 17-year old son, journeys to the village in Baden that he left 40 years before. He wants to discover what happened then, the truth about an affair his mother had with a young Polish prisoner of war, how the authorities came to learn of it, the lovers' arrest, and the aftermath. While his son takes Polaroid photographs, he retraces the steps of his childhood and interviews those who should remember. The story is disclosed in flashbacks that focus on the lovers (Paulina and Stanislaus), on a jealous and conniving neighbor, and on Mayer, the local SS commander who wants to find a way out of inevitable consequences.

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Danton and Robespierre were close friends and fought together in the French Revolution, but by 1793 Robespierre was France's ruler, determined to wipe out opposition with a series of mass executions that became known as the Reign of Terror. Danton, well known as a spokesman of the people, had been living in relative solitude in the French countryside, but he returned to Paris to challenge Robespierre's violent rule and call for the people to demand their rights. Robespierre, however, could not accept such a challenge, even from a friend and colleague, and he blocked out a plan for the capture and execution of Danton and his allies.

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Created to mark the 60th anniversary of Poland's regained independence, Andrzej Wajda's acclaimed seven-hour stage production As the Years Go By, As the Days go By... follows two Kraków families between 1874 and 1914.

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A famous Polish journalist presents a problem for the powers-that-be when he displays his full political skill and knowledge on a television show featuring questions and answers on a world conference by a panel of journalists. His enemies take away his privileges when he is away. The shock of being "unwanted" parallels a deeper disappointment in his private life: his wife has an affair with a jealous young rival, and after 15 years of marriage and two daughters wants a divorce. She offers no explanations as he tries to untie these problems himself. All the moves he makes are the wrong ones. He takes on drinking heavily with students eager to attend his seminar after discovering the class has been canceled. The journalist, once suave and commanding, is reduced to silence.

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The Dead Class (1975), by Tadeusz Kantor and the Cricot 2 company, is considered one of the most innovative and influential works of twentieth-century theatre. The breakthrough first version of the production - performed to great critical acclaim, but only rarely seen live by audiences outside Poland - was documented on film in 1976 by the Oscar-winning director Andrzej Wajda.

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Andrzej Wajda's English-language film of a novella by Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, aka Joseph Conrad, about a young man in his first command as a sea captain. A series of crises prove incredibly difficult for his new authority, for the sea is curiously becalmed and the crew is weakened by feverish malaria. When the first mate's fear convinces many that the ship is haunted and cursed by the malevolent spirit of the previous captain, the young man must cope with their superstition as well as the conspicuous absence of much-needed medicine.

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At the turn of the century, Lodz, Poland, was a quick-paced manufacturing center for textiles, replete with cutthroat industrialists and unsafe working conditions. Three young friends, a Pole, a Jew, and a German, pool their money together to build a factory.

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The trial of Yeshua Ha-Notsri is led by prosecutor Pontius Pilate who believes in the innocence of the accused but is forced to sentence him to death. This biblical story is set in present-day Germany.

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Based on a novella by Ivan Turgenev, Pierwsza milość is the story of a 15 year old boy and a 21 year old girl who develop an ill-fated romance.

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A man suffering from tuberculosis returns from abroad to stay at his brother's farm, hoping to make amends, while also beginning a love affair with a farm girl.

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Film opens with the mad rush of haphazard freedom as the concentration camps are liberated. Men are trying to grab food, change clothes, bury their tormentors they find alive. Then they are herded into other camps as the Allies try to devise policy to control the situation. A young poet who cannot quite find himself in this new situation, meets a headstrong Jewish young girl who wants him to run off with her, to the West. He cannot cope with her growing demands for affection, while still harboring the hatred for the Germans and disdain for his fellow men who quickly revert to petty enmities.

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Filmed in 1970, this little-known short by Andrzej Wajda remained unseen for over five decades after being archived under the working title The Artist. Shot at swimming pools in Warsaw, it follows an athlete who savors the freedom of a solitary dive before joining a disciplined group of competitive swimmers. Originally made using leftover color film stock from Brzezina (1970), the film was digitally restored by TVP in 2026.

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Wajda's homage to Zbigniew Cybulski, the "Polish James Dean" who starred in the director's ASHES AND DIAMONDS and died young. The movie follows the tribulations of a director attempting to make a movie with a Cybulski-like star who never shows up.

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The hero is a Jewish youth. He, like his family, has always been silent and undemonstrative in the face of prejudice. Now he stands up for his right to survive, and in so doing represents the fighting spirit that culminated in the Warsaw Uprising.

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Set in the beginning of World War II, when the Polish cavalry still fought with lances against German troops, the movie is about a white thoroughbred horse that passed through various hands in a military outfit.

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A young academy soldier, Maciek Chelmicki, is ordered to shoot the secretary of the KW PPR. A coincidence causes him to kill someone else. Meeting face to face with his victim, he gets a shock. He faces the necessity of repeating the assassination. He meets Krystyna, a girl working as a barmaid in the restaurant of the "Monopol" hotel. His affection for her makes him even more aware of the senselessness of killing at the end of the war. Loyalty to the oath he took, and thus the obligation to obey the order, tips the scales.

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A documentary about the sculptor Xawery Dunikowski, shot in his workshop. Director paid a tribute to the artist - a recluse without the artistic inheritors.

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