Katyn, the latest film by veteran Polish movie maker Andrzej Wajda, will be Poland’s candidate for ‘Best Foreign Film’ in next year’s Academy Awards. Katyn – which had its premier last week in Warsaw – tells the story of the massacre by over 20,000 Polish officers by the Soviet NKVD in 1940.
Some of Wajda’s family were murdered during the massacre.
Wajda’s latest movie was among 16 Polish films which a special committee had to chose from to send to the Academy in Los Angles for consideration for nomination in the Best Foreign Film category.
In 2000 Wajda was presented with an honorary Oscar for his numerous contributions to cinema.
His epic about the Solidarity strikes, Man of Iron, won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1981. Three of Wajda's works—The Promised Land, The Maids of Wilko, and Man of Iron—have been nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign-language film.
“KATYN”, the new film by Andrzej Wajda, Poland’s best-known director, should leave you shaken and sleepless. It is worth seeing just for the scene in which the senate of Cracow University is arrested en masse by the Nazi occupiers, as well as for as the almost unbearably realistic execution scenes in which Soviet murder squads kill 22,000 captured officers, and also for the way it portrays the attempts by the communist lie machine in post-war Poland to cover up the truth.
Andrzej Wajda, director of “Katyn”Second should be the deportations to Siberia from the Baltic states and elsewhere in eastern Europe. “Collect your things!” barks the arresting NKVD officer in the Wajda film to a woman and child whose only “crime” is to be the family of a Polish officer—who by then is already dead in a ditch in a forest near Smolensk. Such hurried packing in the middle of the night, followed by a cattle-truck to Siberia, was the fate of tens of thousands of people across the Soviet-occupied territories of eastern Europe in a few June days in 1941. Those few that returned came home not as heroes but as released criminals, living on the fringes of Soviet society.
Perhaps most gripping of all is the story of Witold Pilecki, a Polish intelligence officer who volunteered to be imprisoned in Auschwitz in order to find out what was happening there. When he escaped and reported to the Allies what he had discovered, they said he was exaggerating. After the war, he was captured by the communist authorities and executed in 1948.
If the screenwriters get going, the West’s historical understanding will belatedly gain some balance. But do bring plenty of handkerchiefs.
Fifteen thousand Polish officers shot and buried in mass graves by the Soviet secret police. That is the genocidal reality that the "progressive" Left hoped to wipe away from our historical memory. But post-communist reality has made that effort impossible. Just recently, on July 28, Russia and Poland officially dedicated a memorial commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Katyn forest massacre. The memorial honors the thousands of Polish officers who were executed and dumped into mass graves in the Spring of 1940 by the Soviet NKVD in the forest outside Katyn, a small town just west of Smolensk in Russia. German troops discovered the mass graves as they swept toward Moscow in 1943. Stalin, naturally, blamed the massacre on the Nazis, and for fifty years the Soviets would steadfastly maintain their innocence.
Despite the incontrovertible evidence of Soviet guilt, many Western Leftists passionately embraced the Soviet version of Katyn throughout the Cold War. They found their voice in revisionist historian Gabriel Kolko, a Western academic who created excuses for Katyn that only an intellectual could formulate.
As Kolko attempted to exonerate the Soviet perpetrators, he provided several illuminating, and contradictory, interpretations of Katyn. First, he argued that the crime was so evil that only the Nazis were capable of it. Then, as the evidence pointed toward Soviet guilt, Kolko explained that the crime was "understandable," since Moscow had a "political incentive" to carry it out. Kolko emphasized that the "criminological evidence" proved the "culpability of both sides" and that the Katyn incident had to be "downgraded," since it was the "exception rather than the rule" in Stalin's behaviour. The historian went on to praise Stalin for not indulging in "liquidation" in the 1940-1945 period, stressing that "mass murder" did not occur in Poland.
And then there is reality.
We know that Stalin did engage in genocide in the 1940-1945 period. After the Soviets invaded Poland in 1939, an estimated 1.5 million Poles were deported to Soviet labour and prison camps, where many were either executed or died from starvation or forced labour. This genocidal program originated in the September 1939 German-Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty, which contained secret provisions for the handing over of eastern Poland and the Baltic states to the Soviets and the mutual extermination of the Polish people. It explains why, in the spring of 1940, the Red Army captured some 15,000 Polish officers and removed them to three camps in the wooded Smolensk region. In an attempt to eliminate future defenders of the Polish people, the Soviet NKVD took the groups into Katyn Forest and massacred them, dumping their bodies into mass graves.
Along with the Poles, six national minorities in the Crimea and the Caucasus were deported wholesale to Soviet labour camps in 1943-44 period. Approximately three million Russians were also exterminated in the penal camps of Kolyma from the early 1930s to the late 1950s.
In April 1990, Premier Mikhail Gorbachev publicly admitted the NKVD's responsibility for the Katyn executions. In 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin handed over to the Polish government Stalin's "Supreme Punishment" decree of March, 1940, ordering the execution of over 14,000 Polish officers and 10,000-plus other Poles. It explains why mass graves of Poles were uncovered decades later in other parts of the Soviet Union.
Today, a deafening silence emanates from the Left, which at one time so vociferously denied Soviet guilt for Katyn. Kolko, meanwhile, lurks in hiding, licking his wounds as the Soviet archives discredit every lie he perpetrated about the Cold War.
Just as the Western Left is not taken to task for its lies about the Soviet holocaust, so too the perpetrators of the Soviet gulag are not hunted down -- as their Nazi colleagues were for the Jewish holocaust. Because of the Left’s achievement in molding social discourse, genocide in the name of racial hatred is inexcusable, while mass murder in the name of class hatred remains not only forgivable, but laudable.
Yet despite the attempts of the Western Left to wipe out the historical memory of the Soviet gulag’s victims, the wreaths that now lie at Katyn fertilize their memory. That tragic pine forest near the Russian town of Smolensk reminds us that human lives ultimately matter more than the heartlessness of intellectual ideas. To be sure, the lighted candles, flowers and red-and-white national Polish flags that reside at the Katyn memorial say something far more than Gabriel Kolko’s hundreds of footnotes ever will. RESOLUTION ON RECOGNIZING SOVIET GENOCIDE AGAINST POLAND
WHEREAS, the Chief Military Prosecutor of the Russian Federation in April 2005 issued a declaration which denies that the Katyn Forest Massacre and other mass executions of 1940 were acts of genocide; and
WHEREAS the Military Prosecution Office of the Russian Federation refuses to grant access to any and all documents related to Katyn Forest Massacre and other acts of genocide against the Polish Nation during World War 2; and
WHEREAS the Select Committee to Conduct an Inverstigation and Study of the Facts, Evidence and Circumstances of the Katyn Forest Massacre of the United States House of Representatives, in Report No. 2505 dated December 22, 1952, stated “This committee unanimously finds, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the Soviet NKVD committed the mass murders of the Polish officers and intellectual leaders in the Katyn Forest”; and
WHEREAS Polish individuals who have lost family members in Katyn and other places of genocide have lodged a complaint against Russia to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg;
Now therefore, be it resolved that the Polish American Congress strongly protests the continuation by the Russian Federation of the policies of Soviet Union in this matter, and appeals to the Government of the United States and to the European Court of Human Rights, to declare these actions of the Soviet Union, of which the Russian Federation is the successor state, to be acts of genocide.
Addressed to:
Hon. Condoleeza Rice, Secretary of State U.S. Department of State 2201 C Street NW Washington, DC 20520
H.E. Yuri V. Ushakov, Ambassador Embassy of the Russian Federation 2650 Wisconsin Ave. NW Washington, DC 20007
Mr. Luzius Wildhaber, President European Court of Human Rights Council of Europe 67075 Strasbourg-Cedex France Alex Lech Bajan Polish American CEO RAQport Inc. 2004 North Monroe Street Arlington Virginia 22207 Washington DC Area USA TEL: 703-528-0114 TEL2: 703-652-0993 FAX: 703-940-8300 EMAIL: alex@raqport.com WEB SITE: http://raqport.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine's managing editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He edited and wrote the introduction to David Horowitz’s Left Illusions. He is also the co-editor (with David Horowitz) of The Hate America Left and the author of Canadian Policy Toward Khrushchev’s Soviet Union (McGill-Queens University Press, 2002)
Jane Fonda presents Honorary Oscar to Andrzej Wajda
The good Lord God gave the director two eyes - one to look into the camera, the other to be alert to everything that is going on around him. Andrzej Wajda Ladies and Gentlemen,
I will speak in Polish because I want to say what I think and feel and I always thought and felt in Polish.
I accept this greeat honor not as a personal tribute, but as a tribute to all of Polish cinema.
The subject of many of our films was the war, the atrocities of Nazism and the tragedies brought by communism.
This is why today I thank the American friends of Poland and my compatriots for helping my country rejoin the family of democratic nations, rejoin the Western civilizations, its institutions and security structures.
My fervent hope is that the only flames people will encounter will be the great passions of the heart--love, gratitude and solidarity.
On April 2, 2000, Andrzej Wajda donated his Oscar statuette to the Muzeum of Jagiellonian University in Cracow. The statuette will be exposed together with earlier Wajda's gifts: La Palme d'Or from Cannes and Golden Lion from Venice.
Andrzej Wajda - biography WAJDA, Andrzej ; Polish film and theatrical director; born March 6th 1926 in Suwalki; son of Jakub Wajda and Aniela Wajda;
ed. Acadademy of Fine Arts,Cracow; High Film School, Lodz;
Film Director 1954 - ; Theatre Director Teatr Stary ,Cracow 1962 - 1998.
Man.Director Teatr Powszechny Warsaw 1989-90;
Hon.member Union Polish Artist and Designers (ZPAP)1977. Pres.Polish Film Asscn.1978-83 . "Solidarity" Lech Walesa Council 1981 - 1989. Senator of the Republic of Poland 1989 - 1991.
Member Presidential Council for Culture 1992- 94.
Founder: Center of Japanese Art and Technology, Cracow 1994.
Prizes: click here
Order of the Banner of Labor (second class)1975; Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta; Order of Kirill and Methodus (first class), Bulgaria 1978; Oficier, Legion d'Honneur 1982; Order of Rising Sun, Japan 1995.
Films: click here
Polish Television Theatre: click here
Theatre: click here
The Birthplace My family comes from the village of Szarow. Not far away, several miles from Szarow, in the Brzeziow graveyard, lies my granfather, Kazimierz Wayda, still spelt with a "y". These country origins seem essential to me, since from this tiny village, from this place and this family came four young men, all of which became educated people, members of the intelligentsia. One of them was my father, so I am only second generation intelligentsia myself. I think that there was a kind of strength in these young men, who left everything behind because they believed that all their future is before them. At the age of 16 my father joined the Legions (a Polish liberation corps in the I World War), where he became an officer. The second brother found employment as a railway official and until the outbreak of the Second World War he held the post of a director in the Krakow Railways. The third set up a large locksmith's shop, where I worked during the German occupation; the youngest brother, who was a promising farmers' activist, died prematurely.
I think that the force that drove these boys to run away, to avoid staying in one place because life was somewhere else... that I am also driven in this way... I have never wanted to live in places where I was thrown by chance, instead I strove for places which - it seemed to me - I should reach.
So after the war ended I travelled to Krakow, because I thought that my destiny lies at the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts. Then I went to Lodz, because of the foundation of the Film School - the only one in existence at the time - where I thought my place was. Then I left Lodz for Warsaw, because it was where all the filmmaking decisions were made and, besides, a person simply ought to live in Warsaw. And then I returned to Krakow once more, because the Stary Theatre was here. It always seemed to me that life wasn't here and now, not in this place where I was living, not in this film I was making - although every single one of my films and theatre productions was made with the conviction that it is meaningful and important. But I always thought that there is something more before me, that I should be running, striving, chasing this something... it is very difficult to define. I think that escape is the most important theme of my life, continually linking my past to the things that will happen tomorrow. I think that the energy which drove my father and his brothers, was exactly the same energy which I sense in myself, the energy which, so to speak, forced me to work so intensively and to run so hard from this pastoral landscape. Perhaps I should have spent my life looking at these mountains and doing nothing else...
An excerpt of a speech from the film "The Debit and the Credit"
The War and Occupation After the death in 1903 of their father, Kazimierz Wayda, all his sons (my father was 3 at the time) moved to Krakow and helped each other get an education. They were in Krakow again in the 30's, when they restored the house, their only piece of property. At the back of the house was the locksmith's shop; in this house, on the second floor, I used to hide during the occupation. And I must say that my uncles were so discreet (I think that this is a virtue of our family) that only after the end of the war I found out that in the same house they also concealed Jews.
So, thanks to my father's brothers, I was able to survive the occupation; I probably owe them my life, because my papers (documents) were very insufficient. I had to stay at home, I was scared even to go to the tram stop, because there was always some kind of control going on. Of course, it might seem that all I did here was just hide out with my family, but my uncles were extremely serious about all of this. There were several people employed here, we all had normal, everyday tasks, from which I returned late in the evening. If I still had any strength left I climbed out on this balcony, and here I painted some landscapes of the Salwator district. Sitting somewhere near the house I also painted this stream, and this was practically all I managed to do besides the hard work in my uncles' workshop, where I had to go every day.
This work later helped me understand what physical labour really means, what it means to work every day, to go to work in the morning, and when later, in the 50's, there was talk about the workers, the working class, I could say to myself "I have also been a worker". It was not strange to me.
An excerpt from a speech from the film "The Debit and the Credit"
Parents My father was an officer, a junior lieutenant in the Polish Army. My mother was a teacher; she graduated from a teaching college and worked at a Ukrainian school. So they were a typical intelligentsia marriage. My father was promoted very quickly and he was moved to Suwalki, to the 41st Infantry Regiment garrison. And that's where I was born. Officers were constantly transferred from one garrison to another, so my father soon moved to Radom.
Professions such as a teacher or a military officer are directed towards other people. A teacher teaches children, an officer also educates, in a sense, disciplining the soldiers in his care. So both are people who work for others, not only for themselves. I think this quality was very distinct among the Polish intelligentsia in those times and I didn't know that a person could behave otherwise. You live for others, not for yourself.
And suddenly, in 1939, everything collapsed. My father was lost; he went to war and never came back. My mother could not stay at home, she had to go to work, we became workers. Our intelligentsia family found itself in completely different surroundings. I was 13 when the war broke out, so the only things I retained were the things that my home, school and the church had given me until that age.
My father, Jakub Wajda, lived only to the age of 40. He was captain in the 72nd Infantry Regiment and died at Katyn. But until 1989 we were not allowed to make an inscription on the family tomb, saying where he was killed. The censorship was so strict and the ban on all information on this subject so rigorous that when I recently tried to find a copy of the newspaper, published by Germans during the war, with the list of Katyn victims, my father's name among them, it turned out that the paper simply did not exist. Some mysterious hand removed the relevant copies from the library collection, so the experience of living through perhaps the most shocking moment of my life, when I could find out from a German paper that my father had been murdered, was denied to me.
War put an end to my country life - and to my pastoral life, because all childhood seems pastoral. Because of the war I finally could and had to make my own decisions, I knew I could no longer rely on anyone, everything now depended on me and only on me.
My father considered it natural that I should go into the Army. In 1939 I went to Lwow to enroll into the Cadets' School, but unfortunately I failed. I had always tried to have something to draw, I deemed this more interesting than other occupations, but nobody knew what should come out of it. During the occupation I realized, however, that I want to do this professionally and for a few months I attended drawing lessons at an art school owned by a professor from Lodz, which the Germans still allowed at that time. But the occupation became inceasingly more brutal, further education was out of the question, the usual choice was to hide or to work in a firm which could supply good papers - that is documents, which would allow us to go out in the street and move about in a normal way.
My mother came to Krakow near the end of her life, in 1950. My brother and I were already students at the Fine Arts Academy, and she was left behind alone in Radom. Our father didn't return from the war. We still had some hope, but in 1950 we were fairly certain that he won't come back. So our mother moved in with us, to our home in the Salwator district, and when she died prematurely - she was only 50 - she was buried here, because this is the Wajda family tomb and our uncles decided that she should remain here.
An excerpt from a speech from the film "The Debit and the Credit"
The Fine Arts Academy The Fine Arts Academy was, and still is, named after Jan Matejko. In 1945 it experienced an influx of Paris-educated professors, who painted beautifully in the French postimpressionist manner.
But we soon realized that this was a contradiction. Here we were, painting nudes, flowers and still lives in the best French spirit, but our personal experience, our world, were quite different. We had seen the occupation and all its filth, we worked in factories. My fellow students often came straight from the Army, some of them still in uniform - nobody had any clothes to speak of, so everyone wore a uniform (I also dressed in my father's uniform which I had dyed navy blue) - but they came straight from the Army, dressed in battle green, and our shared experince was inconsistent with our painting. We felt we had another story to tell, but our painting expressed what we meant very incompletely - or not at all.
Here we had seen the smoking chimneys of the crematoriums, the arrests, the street roundups, the Warsaw uprising - and they were like Cézanne, who when he was asked, What did you do when the Prussians advanced on Paris? answered, I painted some landscape studies. They, our professors, dared to paint lanscapes and still lives during the war. And it was a kind of resistance against this... against this war and all the things that the German occupation brought to Poland. But now the war had ended and we thought that we should meet painting in a different way. That's why we could not agree... Later it turned out that this conflict perfectly suited the current cultural policy of the authorities.
What was going on?
The year was 1945 and 46 - I enrolled at the Academy in 46. After the party union in 1948 there was a lot of confusion - of an ideological character, so to speak. But socrealism already started taking shape and there was demand for a kind of painting which would represent the new reality: the workers, farmers, all the things which the new policy brought. All this actually boiled down to was planned sovietization of Poland. We liked to paint these other subjects, but we never thought that we would be required merely to imitate Soviet painting. I think that at this point many people left the Academy; they understood that it's simply not possible, that this kind of art has no artistic future,
The thing that today moves me most in the Academy rooms is the smell. It has haunted me for years, this smell of the workshop, of paint... This smell is always with me, and today, when I stand in this studio, I think that this is the place where I could have been happy. But at that time I didn't have enough strength, character, willpower, tenacity. There were other, more talented people, and I was married for the first time. My wife turned out to be a fantastic painter and this also sort of put me off. I had to find another group of friends, another college, another place for myself.
I studied at the Academy for three years. By the end of the third year I realized that I was rather lost, and then, completely by chance, I read in some weekly magazine that the Film School is searching for students. So I decided to leave Krakow for Lodz.
But Lodz was no longer a school to me. I think that whatever I learned or thought or found out about art, was here, in Krakow. Regardless of all our arguments and our criticism of our professors, here we talked about art and thought in terms of art. But the Film School was a technical college - there we talked about how to make a film, how to orient ourselves in the political situation, how to show this subject or another.
But what did it all mean, and why film should be an art, these things I learned here. For a long time I kept hoping that I could paint something, because they told me that in old age you can still paint something good. I don't think this is true. To paint something in old age I should have achieved two things when I was young - I should have found my own way of painting and my own subject. And then, even if I had abandoned painting for a time and then taken it up again, I could have used this experience. But it didn't happen this way, so now I can only be a person who comes, looks and understands.
An excerpt from a speech from the film "The Debit and the Credit"
Krakow In 1950 together with my fellow students from Lodz I went to Nowa Huta. We were making a student movie - a feature - about the construction of the first socialist city in Poland. And so I gained the opportunity to see it all. At the beginning there was nothing here, only fields, but we all believed that the country people really needed such a city, because the villages were overpopulated. The idea was to create something that would transform Krakow. Krakow voted against the communists, so obviously it was necessary to create a community which would infuse this lifeless Krakow with its ideology.
Instead we found ourselves in a lifeless city, while Krakow was alive as never before, as if through an act of historic justice. And this city, intended to be a threat to Krakow, became in fact a kind of provincial little town, seemingly hundreds of miles distant from Krakow, a town where there is nothing of interest, where nothing happens, a town which nobody cares about.
I think that this is a kind of lesson in history, that you can't violate certain things, that there are places which radiate their culture. Krakow radiated culture and that is why it could not be destroyed.
An excerpt from a speech from the film "The Debit and the Credit"
The Film School In the 1950's the Film School was an ideological school. There were no such schools before and this one had no tradition. So it was meant to be a school for "janissaries", intended to educate a film elite, so to speak, which would later become an ideological commando and play a decisive role in the political and social transformations in Poland.
Our professors and teachers were people who before the war sympathized with the left and who just now, at the end of the war, thought that the day had come for them to play their part.
But there emerged an unforeseeable contradiction. These people, our teachers, were educated people who understood what was going on in Poland, and though they deferred to this ideology, they did not completely lose their wits. So, for example, Andrzej Munk could not make a film with a consumptive hero (I was to play that hero because I was terribly thin), he could not make it even as a student etude, because to show a victim of consumption was considered just too pessimistic. On the other hand, the majority of our post-war colleagues came out "from the forest", from the resistance movement, infected with tuberculosis. This disease at the time really took its toll among the intelligentsia, and not only intelligentsia.
But, at the same time, our rector Jerzy Toeplitz brought from Paris a whole collection of French avant-garde movies - not the Russian avant-garde, not Eisenstein, but precisely French. And so I was able to see the "Le Ballet Mécanique", "Le Chien d'Andalousie", "L'Age d'Or" and "Le Ballet Mécanique" once again, all the films which opened my eyes to a completely different kind of cinema, films which we not only never had made, but never had even seen. The inconsistency was fantastic: on the one hand our professors at the school wanted us - perhaps as a way of justification - to make all these socrealist movies, and, on the other, they brought us closer to real art.
Jerzy Toeplitz viewed our school as belonging to a greater body of European film colleges, and not as some provincial school somewhere in the Polish city of Lodz.
An excerpt from a speech from the film "The Debit and the Credit"
The 1989 Crisis I could have been sent to Auschwitz; by a strange twist of fate it didn't happen. I could have been arrested and sent to Germany as a slave labourer. I had a little luck, but this is a country where you actually have to find excuses for your luck. Because it is also true that all those who were braver, more determined, more desperate, more eager to take up arms, are mostly dead. And it must be said that these certainly were the best people.
Now, when we have freedom, so to speak, everyone asks me: OK, but why is it that you were successful while others weren't? Why could you make films while others couldn't? And could these films be right, if they were made in a state film studio and financed with state money? How is this possible? Which means that it would be better if I had spent my life doing nothing. And indeed, these people, who did nothing, have a ready excuse.
But what did we want? We only wanted to expand a little the limits of freedom, the limits of censorship, so that films such as "Popiol i diament" could be made. We never hoped to live to see the fall of the Soviet Union, to see Poland as a free country. We thought that all we could do was to expand this limit, so that the party wouldn't rule by itself but would have to admit the voice of the society it was ruling. If you want to participate in a reality created by an alien power, enforced by a historical situation, then you always risk taking part in some ambiguous game.
I saw quite soon that it was better to remain independent, that a party artist didn't really have more options only because he was allowed to make a film, permitted to do things apparently forbidden to others - quite the opposite.
The party controlled its members even more strictly. It summoned them and said: Why? You see, you know, why do you act this way? Why don't you follow the party line? But I couldn't be spoken to in this way, for I didn't have to follow the party line. I was a filmmaker. Of course, I didn't join the party, not only because my father wouldn't have joined the party, not because my mother wouldn't have thought it right, but simply because I was beginning to have a mind of my own.
All my life I was determined to have a kind of independence. Which is very funny, because there isn't a person more dependent than a film director. He depends on the people with whom he makes the film. He depends on the people for whom he makes the film. Not only on the audience, but also on those who make the film possible. Regardless of the political system, whether it is Poland or America, France or Bulgaria, it is the same everywhere. And this dependence is incomparably stronger. But it seemed to me that this might spring from the strong character of my father, of my whole family, who roused themselves and went away from these fields. The young people who left these villages - some went only in search of bread, but others also in search of bread and success. And immortality. To really become someone and decide not only for themselves but also for others.
Andrzej Wajda - Why Japan? During the German occupation, which I spent in Krakow, I had to hide because my papers were very unsatisfactory. I went to town just once, when I found out that at the Sukiennice Hall there is an exhibition of Japanese art. I didn't know where the collection came from and who had assembled it here, in Krakow. Japan was a German ally during the war, so the Governor-General Frank, who resided at the Wawel Castle, decided to organize an exhibition as a homage to Japan and used this collection. I took a risk and slipped into the Sukiennice and I must say it was an incredible adventure. I remember every detail to this day and I think that the Japanese Centre, standing today by the Vistula river, originated to a large degree from the extraordinary event, which was my encounter with Japanese art here, in Krakow.
Many years later, when my films became well-known and I went abroad a lot, I was also noticed in Japan where I was awarded the prestigious "Kyoto Prize", which is the Japanese equivalent of the Nobel Prize. In short, I received an enormous amount of money - 340 000 USD was a sum beyond my imagination. In all my life I had never earned as much from a Polish movie and I thought - my wife, Krystyna, was of the same opinion - that this is a good moment to consider Japan in Krakow, because this huge collection, about 15 000 various objects, works of art, should be found a place here. Arata Isosaki made a drawing, he came here earlier, and we were standing on the terrace at the Wawel Castle, and he just looked. The city propsed several locations, but in his opinion it was best to build near water, because the most beautiful buildings in the world are built on the waterside. So he selected this location and then the political situation changed suddenly. The new voyevoda was a man who supported this project - Mr. Tadeusz Piekarz, who offered this plot for our Centre. The building was constructed in 15 months. Owing to the government of Japan and to the Railwaymen Union, which also donated a large sum of money for this purpose, Japan suddenly came into existence in Krakow.
Films 1955 Pokolenie [Generation] Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Bohdan Czeszko, based on his novel Director of Photography: Jerzy Lipman Music: Andrzej Markowski Cast: Tadeusz Lomnicki, Urszula Modrzynska, Tadeusz Janczar, Roman Polanski, Ryszard Kotas, Janusz Paluszkiewicz, Zbigniew Cybulski
This film is available at the www.amazon.com (with English subtitles)
1957 Kanal Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Jerzy Stefan Stawinski, based on his novel Director of Photography: Jerzy Lipman Music: Jan Krenz Cast: Wienczyslaw Glinski, Teresa Izewska, Tadeusz Janczar, Emil Karewicz, Wladyslaw Sheybal, Stanislaw Mikulski, Teresa Berezowska, Tadeusz Gwiazdowski, Adam Pawlikowski and others.
This film is available at the Merlin bookstore This film is also available at the www.amazon.com (with English subtitles)
1958 Popiol i diament [Ashes And Diamonds] Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Jerzy Andrzejewski, based on his novel Director of Photography: Jerzy Wojcik
Second Director: Janusz Morgenstern Music: Jan Krenz, Michal Kleofas Oginski Cast: Zbigniew Cybulski, Ewa Krzyzewska, Waclaw Zastrzezynski, Adam Pawlikowski, Bogumil Kobiela
This film is available at the Merlin bookstore Jerzy Andrzejewski's book Popiol i diament is available at the Merlin bookstore This film is also available at the www.amazon.com (with English subtitles)
1959 Lotna Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Wojciech Zukrowski, based on his novel Director of Photography: Jerzy Lipman Second Director: Janusz Morgenstern Music: Tadeusz Baird Cast: Jerzy Pichelski, Adam Pawlikowski, Jerzy Moes, Mieczyslaw Loza, Bozena Kurowska, Karol Rommel, Roman Polanski
1960 Niewinni czarodzieje [Innocent Sorcerers] Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Jerzy Andrzejewski, Jerzy Skolimowski Director of Photography: Krzysztof Winiewicz Music: Krzysztof Trzcinski-Komeda Cast: Tadeusz Lomnicki, Krystyna Stypulkowska, Wanda Koczewska, Zbigniew Cybulski, Roman Polanski, Krzysztof Trzcinski-Komeda, Kalina Jedrusik-Dygatowa and others.
This film is available at the Merlin bookstore This film is available at the www.amazon.com (with English subtitles)
1961 Samson Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Kazimierz Brandys, based on his novel and Andrzej Wajda Director of Photography: Jerzy Wojcik Music: Tadeusz Baird Cast: Serge Merlin, Alina Janowska, Elzbieta Kepinska, Tadeusz Bartosik, Wladyslaw Kowalski, Jan Ciecierski, Beata Tyszkiewicz, Roman Polanski and others.
1962 Sibirska Ledi Magbet [Siberian Lady Macbeth] Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Sveta Lukic, based on a short story by Nikolai Leskov Director of Photography: Aleksander Sekulovic Music: Dusan Radic Cast: Olivera Markowic, Ljuba Tadic, Miodrag Lazarevic, Bojan Stupica and others.
This film is available at the www.amazon.com (with English subtitles)
1962 L'amour à vingt ans [Love At Twenty] Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Jerzy Stefan Stawinski Director of Photography: Jerzy Lipman Music: Jerzy Matuszkiewicz Cast: Barbara Kwiatkowska-Lass, Zbigniew Cybulski, Wladyslaw Kowalski
1965 Popioly [Ashes] Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Aleksander Scibor Rylski, based on the novel by Stefan Zeromski Director of Photography: Jerzy Lipman Second Director: Andrzej Zulawski Music: Andrzej Markowski Cast: Daniel Olbrychski, Pola Raksa, Boguslaw Kierc, Beata Tyszkiewicz, Piotr Wysocki, Jozef Duriasz, Wladyslaw Hancza, Jadwiga Andrzejewska, Stanislaw Zaczyk, Jan Swiderski, Jan Nowicki and others.
This film is available at the Merlin bookstore Stefan Zeromski's book Popioly is available at the Merlin bookstore
1968 The Gates To Paradise Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Jerzy Andrzejewski, based on his novel English dialogs: Donald Howard Director of Photography: Mieczyslaw Jahoda Music: Ward Swingle Cast: Lionel Stander, Ferdy Mayne, Jenny Agutter, Mathieu Carrière and others.
Jerzy Andrzejewski's story Bramy raju is available at the Merlin bookstore
1968 Przekladaniec [Roly Poly] Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Stanislaw Lem, based on his short story Director of Photography: Wieslaw Zdort Music: Andrzej Markowski Cast: Bogumil Kobiela, Ryszard Filipski, Anna Prucnal, Jerzy Zelnik and others.
1969 Wszystko na sprzedaz [Everything For Sale] Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Andrzej Wajda Director of Photography: Witold Sobocinski Music: Andrzej Korzynski Cast: Andrzej Lapicki, Beata Tyszkiewicz, Elzbieta Czyzewska, Daniel Olbrychski and others.
This film is available at the Merlin bookstore
1969 Polowanie na muchy [Hunting Flies] Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Janusz Glowacki, based on his story Director of Photography: Zygmunt Samosiuk Music:Andrzej Korzynski Cast: Malgorzata Braunek, Zygmunt Malanowicz, Daniel Olbrychski, Ewa Skarzanka, Hannna Skarzanka and others.
This film is available at the Merlin bookstore This film is also available at the www.amazon.com (with English subtitles) as Fury Is A Woman
1970 Brzezina [Birch Wood] Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz, based on his short story Director of Photography: Zygmunt Samosiuk Music: Andrzej Korzynski Cast: Daniel Olbrychski, Emilia Krakowska, Olgierd Lukaszewicz, Marek Perepeczko and others.
This film is available at the Merlin bookstore
1970 Krajobraz po bitwie [Landscape After the Battle] Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Andrzej Brzozowski and Andrzej Wajda, based on the novel by Tadeusz Borowski Director of Photography: Zbigniew Samosiuk Music: Antonio Vivaldi, Fryderyk Chopin, Zygmunt Konieczny Cast: Daniel Olbrychski, Stanislawa Celinska, Tadeusz Janczar, Mieczyslaw Stoor, Leszek Drogosz, Aleksander Bardini, Stefan Friedmann, Jerzy Zelnik, Anna German, Malgorzata Braunek and others.
1972 Pilatus und andere [Pilat And Others] Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Andrzej Wajda, based on the novel The Master and Margaret by Michail Bulhajov Director of Photography: Igor Luther Music: Jan Sebastian Bach Cast: Wojciech Pszoniak, Jan Kreczmar, Daniel Olbrychski, Andrzej Lapicki, Marek Perepeczko, Jerzy Zelnik and others.
Michail Bulchakov's book The Master and Margaret is available at the Merlin bookstore
1973 Wesele [The Wedding] Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Andrzej Kijowski, based on Stanislaw Wyspianski's drama Director of Photography: Witold Sobocinski Music: Stanislaw Radwan Cast: Daniel Olbrychski, Ewa Zietek, Malgorzata Lorentowicz, Barbara Wrzesinska, Andrzej Lapicki, Wojciech Pszoniak, Marek Perepeczko, Maja Komorowska, Franciszek Pieczka, Marek Walczewski, Emilia Krakowska and others.
This film is available at the Merlin bookstore Stanislaw Wyspianski's drama Wesele is available at the Merlin bookstore
1975 Ziemia obiecana [Promised Land] Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Andrzej Wajda, based on Wladyslaw Reymont's novel Director of Photography: Witold Sobocinski, Edward Klosinski, Waclaw Dybowski Second Directors: Andrzej Kotkowski, Jerzy Domaradzki Music: Wojciech Kilar Cast: Daniel Olbrychski, Wojciech Pszoniak, Andrzej Seweryn, Anna Nehrebecka, Tadeusz Bialoszczynski, Franciszek Pieczka, Bozena Dykiel, Kalina Jedrusik and others.
This film is available at the Merlin bookstore Stanislaw Reymont's Ziemia obiecana is available at the Merlin bookstore
1976 Smuga cienia [The Shadow Line] Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Boleslaw Sulik, Andrzej Wajda, based on Joseph Conrad's novel Director of Photography: Witold Sobocinski Music: Wojciech Kilar Cast: Marek Kondrat, Graham Lines, Tom Wilkinson, Bernard Archard and others.
1977 Czlowiek z marmuru [The Man of Marble] Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Aleksander Scibor Rylski Director of Photography: Edward Klosinski Second Directors: Krystyna Grochowicz, Witold Holz Music: Andrzej Korzynski Cast: Jerzy Radziwillowicz, Krystyna Janda, Tadeusz Lomnicki, Jacek Lomnicki, Michal Tarkowski, Piotr Cieslak, Wieslaw Wojcik, Krystyna Zachwatowicz and others.
This film is available at the Merlin bookstore This film is also available at the www.amazon.com (with English subtitles)
1978 Bez znieczulenia [Rough Treatment] Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Agnieszka Holland i Andrzej Wajda Cooperation: Krzysztof Zaleski Director of Photography: Edward Klosinski Music: Jerzy Derfel, Wojciech Mlynarski Cast: Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, Ewa Dalkowska, Andrzej Seweryn, Krystyna Janda, Emilia Krakowska, Roman Wilhelmi, Kazimierz Kaczor and others.
This film is available at the www.amazon.com (with English subtitles) as Without Anesthesia
1979 Panny z Wilka [The Maids from Wilko] Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Zbigniew Kaminski, based on a short story by Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz Director of Photography: Edward Klosinski Music: Karol Szymanowski Cast: Daniel Olbrychski, Anna Seniuk, Maja Komorowska, Stanislawa Celinska, Krystyna Zachwatowicz, Christine Pascal, Zbigniew Zapasiewicz and others.
This film is available at the Merlin bookstore Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz's story Panny z Wilka is available at the Merlin bookstore
1980 Dyrygent [The Orchestra Conductor] Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Andrzej Kijowski Director of Photography: Slawomir Idziak Music: Ludwig van Beethoven Cast: John Gielgud, Krystyna Janda, Andrzej Seweryn, Jan Ciecierski, Marysia Seweryn and others.
This film is available at the Merlin bookstore This film is available at the www.amazon.com (with English subtitles)
1981 Czlowiek z zelaza [The Iron Man] Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Aleksander Scibor-Rylski Director of Photography: Edward Klosinski Music: Andrzej Korzynski Cast: Jerzy Radziwillowicz, Krystyna Janda, Marian Opania, Andrzej Seweryn, Irena Byrska and others.
This film is available at the Merlin bookstore This film is also available at the www.amazon.com (with English subtitles)
1983 Danton Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Jean-Claude Carrière, based on Stanislawa Przybyszewska's play Danton's Affair Cooperation: Andrzej Wajda, Agnieszka Holland, Boleslaw Michalek, Jacek Gasiorowski Director of Photography: Igor Luther Music: Jean Prodromides Cast: Gérard Depardieu, Wojciech Pszoniak, Anne Alvaro, Roland Blanche, Patrice Chéreau, Emmanuelle Debever, Krzysztof Globisz, Tadeusz Huk, Marek Kondrat, Boguslaw Linda and others.
1983 Eine Liebe in Deutschland [Love In Germany] Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Boleslaw Michalek, Agnieszka Holland, Andrzej Wajda, based on Rolf Hochhuth's novel Director of Photography: Igor Luther Decoration: Allan Starski Music: Michel Legrand Cast: Hanna Schygulla, Marie-Christine Barrault, Piotr Lysak, Daniel Olbrychski and others.
1986 Kronika wypadkow milosnych [A Chronicle of Amorous Incidents] Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Andrzej Wajda, based on Tadeusz Konwicki's novel Director of Photography: Edward Klosinski Music: Wojciech Kilar Cast: Paulina Mlynarska, Piotr Wawrzynczak, Bernadetta Machala, Dariusz Dobkowski, Tadeusz Konwicki, Jaroslaw Gruda, Tadeusz Lomnicki, Krystyna Zachwatowicz and others.
This film is available at the Merlin bookstore
1988 Les Possédes [The possessed] Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Jean-Claude Carrière, based on a novel by Dostojevsky Cooperation: Andrzej Wajda, Agnieszka Holland, Edward Zebrowski Director of Photography: Witold Adamek Decoration: Allan Starski Music: Zygmunt Konieczny Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Jutta Lampe, Philippine Leroy Beaulieu, Bernard Blier, Jean-Philippe Ecoffey, Laurent Malet, Jerzy Radziwillowicz, Omar Sharif and others.
Fiodor Dostojevsky's novel Bracia Karamazow is available at the Merlin bookstore
1990 Korczak Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Agnieszka Holland Director of Photography: Robby Müller Decoration: Allan Starski Music: Wojciech Kilar Cast: Wojciech Pszoniak, Ewa Dalkowska, Teresa Budzisz-Krzyzanowska, Marzena Trybala, Piotr Kozlowski, Zbigniew Zamachowski, Jan Peszek, Aleksander Bardini, Wojciech Klata, Krystyna Zachwatowicz and others.
This film is available at the Merlin bookstore This film is also available at the www.amazon.com (with English subtitles)
1992 Pierscionek z orlem w koronie [The Crowned-Eagle Ring] Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Andrzej Wajda, Maciej Karpinski, Andrzej Kotkowski, based on a novel by Aleksander Scibor-Rylski Pierscionek z konskiego wlosia (the Horsehair Ring). Director of Photography: Dariusz Kuc Decoration: Allan Starski Music: Zbigniew Gorny Cast: Rafal Krolikowski, Agnieszka Wagner, Adrianna Biedrzynska, Maria Chwalibog, Jadwiga Jankowska-Cieslak, Cezary Pazura, Miroslaw Baka, Piotr Bajor, Jerzy Trela and others.
1994 Nastasja Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Andrzej Wajda, Maciej Karpinski, based on The Idiot by Dostojevsky Japan translation: Masao Yonekawa Director of Photography: Pawel Edelman Decoration and costumes: Krystyna Zachwatowicz Cast: Tamasaburo Bando, Toshiyuki Nagashima
Fiodor Dostojevsky's book Idiota is available at the Merlin bookstore
1995 Wielki Tydzien [Holy Week] Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Andrzej Wajda, based on Jerzy Andrzejewski's short story Director of Photography: Wit Dabal Decoration: Allan Starski Music: G.F. Narholz, F. Ullmann, S. Burston, O. Siebien, R. Baumgartner, J. Clero, V. Borek Cast: Beata Fudalej, Wojciech Malajkat, Wojciech Pszoniak, Magdalena Warzecha, Jakub Przebindowski, Cezary Pazura, Maria Seweryn and others.
1996 Panna Nikt [Miss Nothing] Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Radoslaw Piwowarski, based on a Tomek Tryzna's novel Director of Photography: Krzysztof Ptak Cast: Anna Wielgucka, Anna Mucha, Anna Powierza, Stanislawa Celinska, Janga Jan Tomaszewski and others.
Tomek Tryzna's novel Panna Nikt is available at the Merlin bookstore
1998 Pan Tadeusz Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Andrzej Wajda, Jan Nowina-Zarzycki, Piotr Weresniak, based on a poem by Adam Mickiewicz Second Director: Adek Drabinski Director of Photography: Pawel Edelman Music: Wojciech Kilar Cast: Michal Zebrowski, Alicja Bachleda-Curus, Boguslaw Linda, Daniel Olbrychski, Grazyna Szapolowska, Andrzej Seweryn, Marek Kondrat, Krzysztof Kolberger, Siergiej Szakurow, Jerzy Binczycki and others.
