Wajda’s films screened in Beijing dlaczego nie w Washington DC?

Pani Miluk,
US Embassy Washington DC
Cultural Section

Klania sie Lech Alex Bajan z Arlington VA CEO RAQport.
Dziekuje za rozmowe.

My blog of Wajdzie:
http://andrzejwajda.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2007-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-max=2008-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=12

Polska Ambasada w Washington DC powinna byc pierwsza a nie Polska Ambasada w Chinach.
Trzeba stworzy nowa liste zaproszen na to premiere nie tylko opartej na waszej starej liscie i Polish American Congress.
Jak Jim Costa:
About Jim Costa US Congress.

In January 2005, following a distinguished 24-year career as a member of the California state Legislature, Jim Costa was sworn in as Member of the U.S. House of Representatives representing California's 20th Congressional District.

The grandson of Portuguese immigrants who settled in the fertile San Joaquin Valley near the turn of the 20th Century, Congressman Costa represents a district as diverse in people as it is in crops. Made up of portions of Fresno and Kern Counties and all of Kings County, the 20th Congressional District is home to a thriving agriculture industry which produces much of what America eats. Fresno County is the nation's number one agriculture producing county, Kern County ranks third and Kings County is ninth.

Oraz
Thomas H. Quinn

Partner

thquinn@venable.com

Washington, DC
(202) 344-4701
(202) 344-8300 (fax)
http://www.venable.com/professionals.cfm?action=view&attorney_id=266
Mr. Quinn has been an active participant in political affairs. He served in the presidential campaigns of the late Hubert H. Humphrey and Edward M. Kennedy, and has been continuously active in efforts supporting the Democratic National Committee, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Mr. Quinn served on the Board of International Broadcasting from 1974 to 1982, having been appointed by Presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter. In 1993, Mr. Quinn was appointed by President Clinton as the Alternate U.S. Observer to the International Fund for Ireland.

Member, District of Columbia Bar Association; Member, Rhode Island Bar Association; Member, American Bar Association

To jest sprawa wagi panstwowej i persepcji World War II w srodowisku amerykanskim.

Ze wspolpraca z MSZ i Polakami w USA, roznych organizacji.

Zaprosic wielu z US Congress and Senate, Przedstawicieli innych placowek dyplomatycznych
A szczegolnie Israela i krajow Arabskich oraz swiatu mediow aby uznac Katyn Masacre za Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. To mozna osiagnoc ze zmasowana kampania w US Congress w Wh

Musimy zrobit projekcje nowego filmu Wajdy " Katyn "
szybciej teraz w listopadzie, jak najszybciej kiedy film jest na falach Mediow.
A nie na wiosne.



Podaje info jak zrobila Polska Ambasada w Chinach.

Wajda’s films screened in Beijing

Created: Wednesday, October 17. 2007

A selection of movies by Poland’s most respected film director, Andrzej Wajda, have been screened in China’s capital city, Beijing. The Chinese audience got a chance to see “Promised Land”, “Pan Tadeusz” and “Ditch”.

The screenings were held in the Beijing Film Academy 11 and 12 October and were organized by the Embassy of the Republic of Poland.

Meanwhile, Wajda’s latest film “Katyń”, depicting the soviet massacre of Polish officers and civilians, has already been seen by 1.7 million viewers since its opening night on 21 September, informed Polish Press Agency (PAP).

Contributors to the film include prominent Polish actors, cameraman Paweł Edelman, and scriptwriter Władysław Pasikowski.
Wajda's "Katyn" candidate to the Academy Awards
23.09.2007
Andrzej Wajda’s film Katyn will represent Poland to the Academy Awards. The film of the Oscar winning legend of Polish film making has been chosen from among 16 candidates, by a special committee. Katyn is the first film in Polish history about the massacre of Polish officers by Stalinist NKVD services in 1940. It is not a historical account of the tragedy , but a story of the Katyn lie, a moving study of the women who for years waited for their beloved ones to return. The film will be the Polish candidate to the category of foreign movies competing for the Oscar.
--------------------------
Wajda’s Katyn dominates Gdynia film festival
Polish Radio External Service, Poland - Sep 20, 2007
Wajda's Katyn is not a historical account of the tragedy , it is a psychological portrait of mothers, wives and daughters who waited endlessly for their.

Although Putin has apologized for the past in Budapest and Prague, he is unlikely to do so in Poland. During that visit to Poland in 2002, he refused to draw comparisons between Nazi and Stalinist crimes, instead suggesting that it might be possible to extend the Russian law on the rehabilitation of victims of Stalinism to the Polish citizens involved. But when campaigners from Memorial, a Moscow based human rights group, appealed to a Moscow court for the relatives to be granted the status of victims of political repression, the answer was a categorical "no".

The story is very personal. Mr. Wajda's father was one of the victims of Katyn, and Mr. Wajda based the story on the women who waited in vain for their men to return, just like his own mother had done.

Although many VIPs and the "gliteratti" were present at the showing of the film in the Polish National Opera, the mood was somber, and at the end of the film, the silence was truly pregnant with emotion. I could not see him, but I believe Cardinal Jozef Glemp said a prayer at the very end.

Also at the end of the movie a German lady said to me how lucky I was to be an American. Indeed. The burden of history is huge. These are atrocities that we can never, ever forget.

Go here to read about President Kaczynski's visit to Katyn yesterday, as well as to see some beautiful photos of the victims of the massacre.
The mass execution of twenty thousand Polish POWs by the Soviet security police (the NKVD) is one of the most notorious atrocities of World War II. Stalin and the politburo authorized the executions on March 5, 1940, following their receipt of a memorandum from Lavrenti Beria, the head of the NKVD. Beria reported that NKVD prisons held a large number of Polish army, police, and intelligence officers who were unremittingly hostile to the Soviet system, engaged in anti-Soviet agitation within the camps, and eager to escape and to participate in counterrevolutionary activities. Because these prisoners were all "hardened and uncompromising enemies of Soviet authority," Beria recommended they should all be indicted by a special tribunal of the NKVD, and then shot.

According to NKVD records there were 21,857 such executions during March and April of 1940. Most of the victims were Polish officer POWs who had been captured by the Soviets
As far as the war was concerned, we were all fearful of it. We knew that the Germans were encircling us. They were not only on the western and northern borders, where East Prussia was, but also in Czechoslovakia, so they were to the south of us. When we first heard about the war it was a shock to us, but we were hoping that our army would be able to withstand the German invasion. Little did we know the disparity in the armaments of both armies or that there was a secret clause in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact which Russia and Germany had signed in August 1939. We did not know that the Soviet Union would attack us from the east.

The oil refinery in Drohobycz was bombed a few days after the beginning of the war. The oil burned for a few days and then they bombed our city a second time, not far away from where we were living. First of all the German army came into Drohobycz. They stayed there for about a week and in that time the lorries were transporting goods from the stores westward. Then on the seventeenth of September the Russian army crossed the eastern border of Poland and started to advance. The Germans moved back and the Russians came in and the same thing happened again. The lorries started going to the east.

According to historian Neal Ascherson (1987, pp. 90-1), at half past three in the morning of 17 September 1939, the Polish Ambassador in Moscow was informed that as the Polish state had ceased to exist (which was not true), steps had become necessary to protect the Ukrainian and Byelorussian minorities in the 'former' Polish territories. An hour later, Soviet troops crossed the frontier. There was little resistance to the invasion, the eastern border being almost unprotected. Irena Makowiecka, reflecting upon the situation as it appeared to many Polish civilians, elucidated:

The Russians claimed that they came as an ally, as helpers, but as soon as they came they disarmed the Polish army who were moving east, away from the German panzer divisions. The Soviets took the retreating army as prisoners of war. Only a small number managed to cross the frontier through Rumania and then on to France, following the Polish government.

As the Soviet forces moved across eastern Poland to a demarcation line along the Rivers Bug and San it became clear that a fourth partition of Poland was taking place. Some individuals from all the major political parties in Poland, including President Ignacy Moscicki, managed to escape via Rumania. These people reassembled in Paris where a coalition government under the lead of General Sikorski, also the head of the remaining Polish army, was formed. Seventy-eight tons of gold from the Polish state bank was also transported to the Rumanian port of Constanza, where it was then taken by a British ship to Turkey, by train to Beirut and from there transported to France by a French cruiser.

The new government was recognised by the British, French and Americans but not by the USSR, which had not yet declared war. Sikorski and his aides had to flee when the Germans attacked France in May 1940. They took up residence in London, which remained their headquarters for the remainder of the war. From this base the Polish government in exile operated for the duration of the war, financed by the state gold which had been smuggled out of Poland in September 1939.
Chapter 2 - Deportation
After the invasion of 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union proceeded to annex territory inhabited by almost 13 000 000 people and which constituted more than half of Poland's post 1918 territory (Królikowski, 1983, p.17). Around 5000 000 of these people were ethnic Poles, the rest were predominantly Ukrainians and Byelorussians. Many Poles, both at the time and even at the time of writing, saw this 'stab in the back' as 'the realisation of a coldly planned design, a natural expression of Russia's attitude to the existence of an independent Poland ever since the Russian state had been born' (Ascherson, 1987, p. 92). Events over the next few years justified the belief that Stalin hoped to 'obliterate the Polish nation both physically and culturally' (Ascherson, 1987, p. 94).

Deportation of Officers
The Soviet authorities carried out an immediate round of deportations and arrests, principally of Polish leaders and those in government posts. In 1948 the Ministry of justice in London estimated that 200 000 Polish soldiers were arrested between 1939 and 1940, with at least 180 000 ending up as Soviet prisoners of war. A further 25 000 were forcibly drafted into the Soviet army, or taken as forced labour (Ministry of Justice, 1949). More recent figures suggest that over the remaining months of 1939, the Red Army rounded up an estimated quarter of a million Polish army personnel and transported them to the USSR (Walters, 1988, pp. 275-6).


Out of that total, between 12 000 and 15 000 officers were interned in camps near Katyn, Ostaskow and Starobel'sk. Relatives received intermittent letters from them until the spring of 1940. The occupying German army in April 1943 discovered the Katyn officers in a forest graveyard. According to Ascherson (1987, p. 123), no trace of the 4000 officers at the Starobel'sk camp nor the 6500 prisoners at Ostaskow has yet been found. Although Polish research in the post communist years is bringing to light more information about localities where NKVD (the secret police, now known as the KGB) victims, including Polish officers, were 'buried', nothing appears to have been published in English. The silence and uncertainty which surrounded the fate of these Polish officers left an enduring, if often understated, impact upon their friends and relatives. Stanislawa Jutrzenka-Trzebiatowska (Adamska), whose husband had joined the army three months before war was declared, summarised the events surrounding his disappearance with simple candour:

Alex Lech Bajan
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Lenda viva do cinema conta história de seu pai em campo soviético

Lenda viva do cinema conta história de seu pai em campo soviético
12/09 - 17:37 - AFP

ImprimirEnviarCorrigirFale ConoscoLenda do cinema mundial, o polonês Andrzej Wajda apresentou nesta quarta-feira em Varsóvia seu novo filme, no qual ele conta a história trágica de seu pai, um dos 22.500 oficiais poloneses massacrados pelos soviéticos em 1940 na floresta de Katyn e em outros campos.


O cineasta, com 81 anos, escolheu colocar no início do filme chamado "Katyn" uma dedicatória "a meus pais".

Seu pai, Jakub Wajda, era capitão de um regimento de infantaria do Exército polonês. Ele foi executado com uma bala na nuca pelo NKVD, a polícia secreta de Stalin.

E como centenas de outras mulheres, sua mãe passou um bom tempo se recusando a aceitar a morte do marido. "Minha mãe se encheu de ilusão até o fim de sua vida, porque o nome do meu pai aparecia com outro sobrenome na lista dos oficiais mortos".

Simbolicamente, a estréia do filme vai acontecer em 17 de setembro, mesmo dia que, em 1939, o Exército vermelho invadiu o leste da Polônia para dividir o país com sua aliada, a Alemanha nazista, que começou a invasão em 1° de setembro.

Na primeira cena do filme, duas multidões se imprensam em sentidos opostos: uma quer fugir do Exército vermelho e outra da Wehrmacht, as Forças de Defesa alemãs. A narrativa termina com imagens das execuções realizadas uma a uma na floresta de Katyn.

A União Soviética negou imediatamente sua responsabilidade no massacre. O Ocidente ficou mudo para não azedar suas relações com Moscou, que se tornou um aliado indispensável na guerra contra Adolf Hitler.

O filme é uma ficção, mas como insiste Andrzej Wajda, ele é baseado em histórias e episódios autênticos. Uma boa parte do filme se passa em Cracóvia e conta a espera das mulheres entre 1939 e 1950. O cineasta utiliza imagens de arquivo filmadas pelos alemães durante a exumação dos corpos em 1941 e ainda as feitas pela propaganda soviética.

"Nenhum cineasta bem intencionado poderia filmá-lo na época comunista, se não, ele teria que apresentar a versão oficial", disse ele. Porque este filme mostra também a mentira contada pelo regime comunista polonês que persistiu em atribuir o massacre aos alemães.

Só em abril de 1990 o presidente soviético, Mikhail Gorbatchev, reconheceu a responsabilidade da União Soviética. Na Polônia, praticamente até a queda do comunismo, era proibido falar em Katyn, cuja floresta se tornou o símbolo do massacre das elites polonesas, que também ocorreu em outros locais, como em Kharkiv (Ucrânia) e Miednoïe (Rússia).

"Espero que façam outros filmes sobre este assunto. Meu filme deve ser apenas o primeiro", declarou o cineasta, que recebeu em 2000 um Oscar pelo conjunto de sua obra, numa carreira de mais de 50 anos.

"Finalmente esse filme existe", declarou o ator Andrzej Seweryn, presente na pré-estréia. "Toda a Polônia esperava por isso. Wajda não poderia deixar de fazer este filme, ele se preparou muito tempo para isso, ele estudou o assunto, procurou um bom cenário, era realmente importante para ele".

Para garantir o sucesso do filme, Wajda confiou as imagens a Pawel Edelman, responsável pela fotografia de "O Pianista", de Roman Polanski, e deixou a música a cargo do compositor polonês Krzysztof Penderecki.


mc/pg/LR

Katyn: história e conseqüências de uma tragédia polonesa

href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_xtyywKwqipg/RwHkWnTFGEI/AAAAAAAAB3k/wQApr4tTJSA/s1600-h/4307e20bd7a54e00.jpg">

Katyn: história e conseqüências de uma tragédia polonesa
Prisoners of undeclared war
(Katyn and Russia-Polish relations)
Maxim Krans, political commentator
RIA Novosti (Russian News and Information Agency), 12.09.2007

MOSCOW - When Russia was recognized as the de facto successor to the U.S.S.R. it inherited not only its property, nuclear arsenal and a huge foreign debt, but also the heavy, often unbearable, burden of historic responsibility for the policies and actions of former regimes.

A new feature film from the outstanding film director Andrzej Wajda, which will be released in the next few days, serves as a timely reminder of this. It is devoted to the Katyn tragedy -- a sensitive issue, which has marred Russian-Polish relations for years. Wajda, who lost his father in the Katyn forest, has said more than once that he does not wish his film to be political. But films have a habit of taking on a life of their own, regardless of their director's wishes, and once it is released it may well be seized on by others as a political weapon.

The facts of the matter seemed to have been finally established in 1990, when TASS issued its first statement on the Katyn tragedy. It admitted that the officers imprisoned by the Red Army during partition of Poland had been killed by the NKVD. Two years later, Boris Yeltsin handed Polish President Lech Walesa materials from a secret folder, which successive Communist Party general secretaries had kept under lock and key. This file included an excerpt from protocol #13 of the Central Committee Politburo session of March 5, 1940, which passed a death sentence on Polish officers, policemen, government officials, landlords, factory owners and other "counterrevolutionary elements" who were kept in forced labor camps (14,700) and prisons in western Ukraine and Byelorussia (11,000).

The same protocol ordered a review of cases, in absentia and without filing charges. As a result POWs from the Kozel camp were shot in the Katyn forest near Smolensk, while those detained in Starobelsk and Ostashkov were taken to local execution sites. In a secret memo to Nikita Khrushchev in 1959, KGB chief Alexander Shelepin reported that about 22,000 Poles had been killed. More than 200,000 relatives of POWs, and almost as many Poles from the "Soviet-liberated" territories were deported to exile in Kazakhstan, Siberia and the North.

These are hard facts. After 50 years of secrecy and cover-up, the Soviet and Russian presidents admitted the Stalinist regime's responsibility for this heinous crime. Memorials in honor of Polish POWs rose at their burial sites. Repeating Willy Brandt's iconic act of contrition, Boris Yeltsin knelt before the monument to the Katyn officers at a military cemetery in Warsaw.

But the question of repentance has refused to be laid to rest. On the eve of Vladimir Putin's visit to Poland in 2002, President Aleksander Kwasniewski demanded official apologies from his Russian counterpart. The current Polish leader Lech Kaczynski still insists on them.

Although Putin has apologized for the past in Budapest and Prague, he is unlikely to do so in Poland. During that visit to Poland in 2002, he refused to draw comparisons between Nazi and Stalinist crimes, instead suggesting that it might be possible to extend the Russian law on the rehabilitation of victims of Stalinism to the Polish citizens involved. But when campaigners from Memorial, a Moscow based human rights group, appealed to a Moscow court for the relatives to be granted the status of victims of political repression, the answer was a categorical "no".

Moreover, in defiance of the previous Russian position, the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office halted the inquiry into the Katyn case, citing the absence of genocide and the death of the guilty officials. Most of the documents of the 14 year-long investigation were classified.

Prominent Polish publicist Jerzy Urban thinks this decision was a way of avoiding paying compensation to the victim's families. He wrote in the Nie weekly: "If Poland created a precedent with compensation, the whole family of Soviet peoples plus peace-loving nations of the socialist camp would rush to Russia with an outstretched hand." Maybe so - at any rate Prosecutor General Nikolai Turbin hinted at this possibility in his letter to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991.

If Poles were insulted and indignant at the decision to close the investigation, in Russia it inspired Stalinists and nationalists. With renewed zeal they started reiterating the old Soviet version that the Nazis were responsible for the massacre, even though it had already been refuted by documented evidence. Governor Aman Tuleyev demanded that Warsaw "repent in turn" for the Red Army soldiers who perished in camps during the Soviet-Polish war of 1919-1921.

But an unbiased look at the current flurry of recriminations reveals a more serious split than different versions of history. It is not rooted in the distant past, which abounds in mutual grievances, but in the early 1990s. Euphoric with sudden freedom, both nations were eager to rid themselves of the fetters of communism as soon as possible. But in the hurry to exorcise the recent past, they also lost the valuable political, economic, and, last but not the least, human contacts, which had existed between our nations since ancient times.

Over the following years we drifted so far apart that by the time we entered the new millennium our relations were zero, or even negative. Today, they resemble a fencing tournament, in which each side responds to (what is sees as) a sensitive attack with its own phrase d'arms: a meat ban rebounds in the form of a veto on a strategic EU agreement; a Baltic gas pipeline is followed by a welcome to U.S. missiles, and so on.

On both sides ambitions and injured pride are overriding pragmatism. This is not only sad - it is also bad. Compromise is essential for neighbors in Europe.

"Katyn. Prisoners of Undeclared War," is the title of a collection of documents compiled by Russian and Polish historians and archivists. In today's uneasy bilateral context, this title acquires a symbolic significance. Having introduced old historical arguments to current politics, the leaders of our countries have fallen prisoner to long-discredited myths and stereotypes, themselves the restless survivors of the era of this undeclared war.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.


# posted by Paulo R. de Almeida @ Quinta-feira, Setembro 13, 2007

56º FESTIVAL DE CINE DE BERLIN

56º FESTIVAL DE CINE DE BERLIN


El polaco Andrezj Wajda recibe el Oso honorífico

SILVIA ROMAN. Corresponsal

BERLIN.- El Festival de Cine de Berlín honró anoche con un Oso de Oro honorífico al cineasta polaco Andrzej Wajda. Desde que acabara sus estudios de cine en 1952 como parte de la Nueva Escuela de Lodz, Wajda ha filmado más de 30 películas intimistas y comprometidas, sorprendiendo desde sus primeros trabajos como Cenizas (1965) hasta los últimos en los que ha reunido a rostros como Gérard Depardieu (Danton, 1983) o su compatriota Roman Polanski (Zemska, 2002).


Wajda agradeció el galardón de la Berlinale con la misma sonrisa que dedicó a Jane Fonda la noche del año 2000 que le entregó el Oscar Honorífico a toda su carrera. A sus 79 años, el cineasta polaco sigue pensando en el cine y tiene un ambicioso proyecto entre manos, del que ayer dio detalles. Según confirmó Wajda, este mismo año grabará una cinta sobre la masacre de Katyn, donde falleció su padre en 1940.

«Es un tema personal que siempre he querido llevar al cine, pero tenía que esperar a que llegara el momento», comentó el director, quien explicó que supo que podía poner en marcha el proyecto cuando Mijail Gorbachov «envió a Polonia los documentos necesarios para conocer los detalles del crimen». La masacre de Katyn fue ejecutada por el Ejército Rojo durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial y en ella fallecieron miles de polacos, la mayoría oficiales que habían sido tomados como prisioneros de guerra.

Con el Oso de Oro a Wajda, la Berlinale culmina su entrega de galardones honoríficos, ya que recientemente le entregó un premio similar al actor británico Ian McKellen. Y si hablamos de ganadores, hay que mencionar también al corto español El cerco, dirigido por Nacho Martín y Ricardo Iscar. La cinta, que retrata la pesca del atún con almadabra en el Estrecho de Gibraltar, ha sido destacado con el galardón UIP (United International Pictures) como el mejor cortometraje europeo de la Berlinale.

XX FESTIVAL INTERNACIONAL DE CINE DE MIAMI

XX FESTIVAL INTERNACIONAL DE CINE DE MIAMI
Andrzej Wajda
Un poeta de Polonia
CHARLES COTAYO

Una vez nos enseñó que incluso bajo la censura se puede hacer una gran obra. Ahora nos advierte que en la libertad podemos perder nuestro rostro

Durante la Guerra Fría, Andrzej Wajda fue los ojos cinematográficos del mundo occidental al este del muro de Berlín. En esa extraordinaria época, el director polaco realizó obras maestras que reflejan su indomable espíritu de supervivencia en las selvas políticas.

Para este genio del séptimo arte, el cine siempre ha sido más que un vehículo de entretenimiento. Sus mejores películas son un documento de la lucha de su país por la libertad desde una perspectiva humanitaria.


''Eran una excepción porque el cine al este de la muralla de Berlín no estaba presentando la realidad en Polonia'', afirmó Wajda en entrevista desde su residencia en Varsovia.

Añade que sus películas abrieron los ojos de la crítica y el público.

''La más difícil de todas fue Hombre de mármol (1977), la primera que demostró cómo los trabajadores tenían que ponerse en pie y luchar por sus derechos'', dice Wajda. ``El comunismo predicaba representar los derechos de los trabajadores. Hombre de mármol demuestra que la ideología comunista no era congruente con la situación actual de los obreros''.

Hombre de hierro (1981), la poderosa secuela de Hombre de mármol, fue galardonada con la Palma de Oro en el Festival Internacional de Cine de Cannes, lo que él considera uno de los más gratificantes acontecimientos de su carrera artística.

''Esa fue una película política que estuve muy safisfecho de poder hacer en ese momento'', agrega Wajda. ``Cuando la estábamos filmando no sabíamos cómo iba a terminar. Me alegro que no perdí tiempo y que la realicé en el momento en que los acontecimientos se estaban produciendo. Pude filmar a los héroes de esa situación, Walesa, sus consejeros, nuestros amigos''.

La primera vocación de Wajda no fue el cine, sino la pintura. Entre 1946 y 1949 estudió en la Escuela de Bellas Artes en Cracovia. Pero los artistas solamente podían pintar lo que permitían las autoridades subordinadas a la Unión Soviética. Abandonó la pintura para estudiar cinematografía en la prestigiosa escuela de Lodz, en 1950.

''Eso quizás sea una parodia, porque el cine estaba más censurado y controlado por las presiones políticas que la pintura'', subraya Wajda.

No obstante, era su destino. Terminó sus estudios fílmicos en 1952 y después fue uno de los asistentes del cineasta Aleksander Ford. Se estableció como director de primer rango con Generación (1955), la primera cinta de su famosa trilogía que incluye a la superior Canal (1957), y a una de las obras fundamentales del cine, Cenizas y diamantes (1958).

De acuerdo con Wajda, el director italiano Roberto Rossellini y el movimiento del neorrealismo italiano fueron grandes influencias en Generación. Cuando estaba trabajando en Cenizas y diamantes la fotografía reflejaba las influencias de las películas de gángsteres norteamericanas, el estilo film noir, explicó Wajda.

''La película La jungla de asfalto era mi favorita en aquella época'', subraya.

Durante su carrera, que incluye más de 40 producciones, las mayores influencias han provenido de tres cineastas que él llama ''sus mentores'': el italiano Federico Fellini, el japonés Akira Kurosawa, y el sueco Ingmar Bergman. Sin lugar a dudas, Wajda pertence a esa selecta lista de grandes maestros del celuloide.

''Jamás pensé que sería parte de ese círculo'', confiesa Wajda. ``Yo simplemente deseaba hacer películas que eran necesarias en un momento dado''.

En la premiación de la Academia de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas del 2000, en Los Angeles, la actriz Jane Fonda le entregó a Wajda un Oscar honorario por ``cinco décadas de extraordinaria dirección cinematográfica''.

''Es uno de los momentos más bellos en la vida de un director'', destaca Wajda. Su más reciente película, Revenge (2002), protagonizada por Roman Polanski, se presentará en la vigésima edición del Festival Internacional de Cine de Miami. Es una comedia de época visualmente hermosa que, para Wajda, refleja el nuevo espíritu de su tierra natal.

''La situación política en Polonia ahora es muy distinta a la época cuando estaba filmando Canal y Cenizas y diamantes'', precisa Wajda. ``Polonia ahora es un país libre con una sociedad que está viviendo una vida muy diferente''.

Agrega que actualmente el público polaco está cuestionando de qué manera su cultura y sus tradiciones serán influidas y percibidas mientras entran en la Unión Europea.

''Existe cierto temor de que se pudieran disolver dentro de la llamada civilización europea'', recalca Wajda.

Para él, Revenge, que ha tenido gran éxito en Polonia, con una audiencia de más de dos millones, refleja la belleza de su idioma, los comportamientos particulares de su tierra, las costumbres, las personalidades positivas y negativas, dentro de un marco humorístico.

''Lo nuestro'', afirma.

No obstante, el cine de Wajda pertenece al mundo. Actualmente dirige una escuela de cinematografía en Varsovia, para desarrollar una nueva generación de cineastas.

''El deseo de hacer películas profesionalmente no es suficiente'', afirma. ``El cine es un fenómeno social que refleja a la sociedad y el cineasta tiene que ser parte de lo que está ocurriendo en esa sociedad; vivir y sentir los problemas que todos encaran''.

Uno de los proyectos que Wajda quiere realizar en el futuro trata sobre el asesinato de 10,000 militares polacos por soldados soviéticos en Katyn, en 1940.

''Mi padre fue una de las víctimas'', rememora Wajda. ``Antes de la liberación de 1989 se decía entre comillas que los alemanes habían sido los responsables, cuando la verdad era que los soviéticos habían cometido los asesinatos. Por eso no fue posible hacer una película basada en esa situación en aquel entonces''.

Wajda nació el 6 de marzo de 1926 en Suwalki, Polonia. Su padre fue capitán del ejército polaco y su madre una maestra. Durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial, Wajda, que entonces era un adolescente, perteneció al Ejército Nacional Polaco, una agrupación antinazi clandestina. Se ha casado dos veces y tiene dos hijas de su primer matrimonio.

''Puedo decir que he tenido una vida feliz'', afirma Wajda. ``Sobreviví la guerra, me realicé como cineasta, pude dirigir películas como Cenizas y diamantes, logré ver el movimiento de Solidaridad de Polonia, y ver a mi país libre. Por lo tanto, te puedo decir que sí soy un hombre feliz''

Witold Pilecki (amazing life of the Polish hero that too few know about)

Witold Pilecki (amazing life of the Polish hero that too few know about)
Absolute Astronomy ^




Witold Pilecki

Born May 13, 1901, Olonets, Karelia, Russia.

Died May 25, 1948, Warsaw, Poland.

Witold Pilecki (May 13, 1901 – May 25, 1948); codenames Roman Jezierski, Tomasz Serafinski, Druh, Witold) was a soldier of the Second Polish Republic, founder of the resistance movement Secret Polish Army (Tajna Armia Polska) and member of the Home Army (Armia Krajowa). During World War II he was the only known person to volunteer to be imprisoned at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. While there, he organized inmate resistance, and as early as 1940 informed the Western Allies of Nazi Germany's camp atrocities. He escaped from Auschwitz in 1943 and took part in the Warsaw Uprising (August–October 1944). Pilecki was executed in 1948 by communist authorities.

Biography

Pilecki's early life

Witold Pilecki was born May 13, 1901, in Olonets on the shores of Lake Ladoga in Karelia, Russia, where his family had been forcibly resettled by Tsarist Russian authorities after the suppression of Poland's January Uprising of 1863-1864. His grandfather, Józef Pilecki, had spent seven years in exile in Siberia for his part in the Uprising. In 1910 Pilecki moved with his family to Wilno (now Vilnius, Lithuania), where he completed Commercial School and joined the secret ZHP Scouts organization. In 1916 he moved to Orel, Russia, where he founded a local ZHP group.

During World War I, in 1918, Pilecki joined Polish self-defense units in the Wilno area, and under General Władysław Wejtka helped collect weapons and disarm retreating, demoralized German troops. Subsequently he took part in the Polish-Soviet War of 1919–1920. Serving under Major Jerzy Dąbrowski, he commanded a ZHP Scout section. When his sector of the front was overrun by the Bolsheviks, his unit for a time conducted partisan warfare behind enemy lines. Pilecki later joined the regular Polish Army and as part of a cavalry unit fought in the defense of Grodno (in present-day Belarus). On August 5, 1920, he joined the 211th Uhlan Regiment and fought in the historic Battle of Warsaw and at Rudniki Forest (Puszcza Rudnicka) and took part in the liberation of Wilno. For gallantry he was twice awarded the Krzyż Walecznych (Cross of Valor).

After the Polish-Soviet War ended in 1921 with the Peace of Riga, Pilecki passed his high-school graduation exams (matura) in Wilno and in 1926 was demobilized in the rank of cavalry ensign. In the interbellum he worked on his family's farm in the village of Sukurcze. On April 7, 1931, he married Maria Pilecka (1906 – February 6, 2002), née Ostrowska. They had two children, born in Wilno: Andrzej (January 16, 1932) and Zofia (March 14, 1933).

World War II breaks out

Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, on August 26, 1939, Pilecki was mobilized and joined the 19th Infantry Division of Army Prusy as a cavalry-platoon commander. His unit took part in heavy fighting in the September Campaign against the advancing Germans and was partially destroyed. Pilecki's platoon withdrew southeast toward Lwów (now L'viv, in Ukraine) and the Romanian bridgehead and was incorporated into the recently formed 41st Infantry Division. During the September Campaign, Pilecki and his men destroyed 7 German tanks and shot down two aircraft. On September 17, after the Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland pursuant to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Pilecki's division was disbanded and he returned to Warsaw with his commander, Major Jan Włodarkiewicz.

On November 9, 1939, the two men founded the Secret Polish Army (Tajna Armia Polska, TAP), one of the first underground organizations in Poland. Pilecki became its organizational commander and expanded TAP to cover not only Warsaw but Siedlce, Radom, Lublin and other major cities of central Poland. By 1940 TAP had approximately 8,000 men (more than half of them armed), some 20 machine guns and several anti-tank rifles. Later the organization was incorporated into the Home Army (Armia Krajowa) and became the core of the Wachlarz unit.

The Auschwitz campaign: 945 days

In 1940 Pilecki presented to his superiors a plan to penetrate Germany's Auschwitz Concentration Camp at Oświęcim (the Polish name of the locality), gather intelligence on the camp from the inside, and organize inmate resistance. Until then little had been known about the Germans' running of the camp, and it was thought to be an internment camp or large prison rather than a death camp. His superiors approved the plan and provided him a false identity card in the name of "Tomasz Serafiński." On September 19, 1940, he deliberately went out on a street in a Warsaw street roundup (łapanka), and was caught by the Germans along with some 2,000 innocent civilians (among them, Władysław Bartoszewski). After two days of torture in Wehrmacht barracks, the survivors were sent to Auschwitz. Pilecki was tattooed on his forearm with the number 4859.

At Auschwitz, while working in various kommandos and surviving pneumonia, Pilecki organized an underground Union of Military Organizations (Związek Organizacji Wojskowych, ZOW). ZOW's tasks were to improve inmates' morale, provide them news from outside, distribute extra food and clothing to members, set up intelligence networks, and train detachments to take over the camp in the event of a relief attack by the Home Army, arms airdrops, or an airborne landing by the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade, based in Britain.

By 1941, ZOW had grown substantially. Members included the famous Polish sculptor Xawery Dunikowski and ski champion Bronisław Czech, and worked in the Camp's SS Administration Office (Mrs. Rachwalowa, Capt. Rodziewicz, Mr. Olszowka, Mr. Jakubski, Mr. Miciukiewicz), the storage magazines (Mr. Czardybun) and the Sonderkommando, which burned human corpses (Mr. Szloma Dragon and Mr. Henryk Mendelbaum). The organization had its own underground court and supply lines to the outside. Thanks to civilians living nearby, the organization regularly received medical supplies.

ZOW provided the Polish underground priceless information on the camp and German activities there. Many smaller underground organizations at Auschwitz eventually merged with ZOW. In the autumn of 1941 Colonel Jan Karcz was transferred to the newly-created Birkenau death camp, where he proceeded to organize ZOW structures. By spring of 1942 the organization had over 1,000 members at most of the sub-camps, the membership including women, Czechs, Jews and many others. The inmates constructed a radio receiver and hid it in the camp hospital.

From October 1940 ZOW sent reports to Warsaw, and from March 1941 Pilecki's reports were being forwarded via the Polish resistance to the British government in London. These reports were a principal source of intelligence on Auschwitz for the Western Allies. Pilecki hoped that either the Allies would drop arms or troops into the camp, or the Home Army would organize an assault on it from outside. By 1943, however, he realized that no such plans existed. Meanwhile the Gestapo redoubled its efforts to ferret out ZOW members. Pilecki decided to break out of the camp, with the hope of personally convincing Home Army leaders that a rescue attempt was a valid option. When he was assigned to a night shift at a camp bakery outside the fence, he and two comrades overpowered a guard, cut the phone line and escaped on the night of April 26–April 27, 1943, taking along documents stolen from the Germans. In the event of capture, they were prepared to swallow cyanide to prevent the Germans learning the extent of their knowledge. After several days, with the help of local civilians, they made good their escape from the area and contacted Home Army units. Pilecki submitted another detailed report on conditions at Auschwitz.

Back outside Auschwitz: the Warsaw Uprising.

On August 25, 1943, Pilecki reached Warsaw and joined the Home Army as a member of its intelligence department. The Home Army, after losing several operatives in reconnoitering the vicinity of the camp, including the Cichociemny commando Stefan Jasieński, decided that it lacked sufficient strength to capture the camp without Allied help. Pilecki's detailed report (Raport Witolda—"Witold's Report") was sent to London. The British authorities refused the Home Army air support for an operation to help the inmates escape. An air raid was considered too risky, and Home Army reports on Nazi atrocities at Auschwitz were deemed to be gross exaggerations (Pilecki wrote: "During the first 3 years, at Auschwitz there perished 2 million people; in the next 2 years—3 million").

Pilecki was soon promoted to cavalry captain (rotmistrz) and joined a secret anti-communist organization, NIE ("NO"), formed within the Home Army to prepare resistance against a coming Soviet occupation.

When the Warsaw Uprising broke out on August 1, 1944, Pilecki volunteered to the Kedyw's Chrobry II group. At first he fought in the northern city center without revealing his actual rank, as a simple private. Later he disclosed his true identity and accepted command of the 2nd company fighting in the Towarowa and Pańska Streets area. His forces held a fortified area called the "Great Bastion of Warsaw". It was one of the most outlying partisan redoubts and caused considerable difficulties for German supply lines. The bastion held for two weeks in the face of constant attacks by German infantry and armor. On the capitulation of the Uprising, Pilecki hid some weapons in a private apartment and went into captivity. He spent the rest of the war at German prisoner-of-war camps at Łambinowice and Murnau.

"Liberation": Soviet-dominated Poland

After liberation, on July 11, 1945, Pilecki joined the 2nd Polish Corps. There he received orders to clandestinely transport a large sum of money to Soviet-occupied Poland, but the operation was called off. In September 1945 Pilecki was ordered by General Władysław Anders to return to Poland and gather intelligence to be sent west.

He went back and proceeded to organize his intelligence network, while also writing a monograph on Auschwitz. In the spring of 1946, however, the Polish Government in Exile decided that the postwar political situation afforded no hope of Poland's liberation and ordered all partisans still in the forests either to return to their normal civilian lives or to escape to the west. Pilecki declined to leave, but proceeded to dismantle the partisan forces in eastern Poland.

In April 1947 he began collecting evidence on Soviet atrocities and on the prosecution of Poles (mostly members of the Home Army and the 2nd Polish Corps) and their executions or imprisonment in Soviet gulags.

On May 8, 1947, he was himself arrested by the Polish security service (Urząd Bezpieczeństwa). Prior to trial he was repeatedly tortured but revealed no sensitive information and sought to protect other prisoners. On March 3, 1948, a staged trial took place, in which many probably forged documents were admitted into evidence. Testimony against him was presented by a future Polish prime minister, Józef Cyrankiewicz, himself an Auschwitz survivor. Pilecki was accused of having spied for the Western Allies and General Anders. On May 15, with three of his comrades, he was sentenced to death. Ten days later, on May 25, 1948, he was executed at Warsaw's Mokotow Prison on ulica Rakowiecka (Rakowiecka Street).

Pilecki's conviction was based on false charges and evidence, as part of a prosecution of Home Army members and others connected with the Polish Government in Exile in London. In 2003 the prosecutor and several others involved in the trial were charged with complicity in Pilecki's murder. Cyrankiewicz escaped similar proceedings by having died earlier.

After Poland regained freedom Witold Pilecki and all others sentenced in the mock trial were rehabilitated on October 1, 1990. In 1995 he received posthumously the Order of Poland Reborn. His place of burial has never been found; he is thought to have been buried in a rubbish dump near Warsaw's Powązki Cemetery. Until 1989 information on his exploits and fate was suppressed by the Polish communist regime.

Summary of Pilecki's Polish Army career

Ensign (podporucznik) from 1925 First Lieutenant (porucznik) from November 11, 1941 (promoted while at Auschwitz) Captain (cavalry rotmistrz) from November 11, 1943

Warsaw premiere of Andrzej Wajda's "Katyn".

Last night I was lucky enough to attend the Warsaw premiere of Andrzej Wajda's "Katyn".

Even though my Polish is minimal, there was no need to be fluent in order to understand the film's terribly powerful and poignant depictions of fear, frustration, love, anger, despair, revulsion, and propaganda lies .

The story is very personal. Mr. Wajda's father was one of the victims of Katyn, and Mr. Wajda based the story on the women who waited in vain for their men to return, just like his own mother had done.

Although many VIPs and the "gliteratti" were present at the showing of the film in the Polish National Opera, the mood was somber, and at the end of the film, the silence was truly pregnant with emotion. I could not see him, but I believe Cardinal Jozef Glemp said a prayer at the very end.

Also at the end of the movie a German lady said to me how lucky I was to be an American. Indeed. The burden of history is huge. These are atrocities that we can never, ever forget.

Go here to read about President Kaczynski's visit to Katyn yesterday, as well as to see some beautiful photos of the victims of the massacre.

"Katyn" de Andrzej Wajda, un apel la o restitutie istorica

"Katyn" de Andrzej Wajda, un apel la o restitutie istorica

Andrei Wajda la conferinta de presa de ieri in cadrul careia a discutat despre ultimul sau filmIulia Blaga
Vineri, 21 Septembrie 2007
» Astazi are premiera in Polonia "Katyn", cea mai recenta productie semnata Andrzej Wajda.

» Regizorul polonez, in varsta de 81 de ani, a facut "un film de cenusa, grav si epifanic", conform presei poloneze, despre tragedia ofiterilor polonezi ucisi de sovietici in 1940.

» "Katyn" este primul lungmetraj de fictiune realizat in Polonia pe acest subiect nu doar tragic, ci si controversat.

Daca evenimentul cultural al saptamanii este in Romania


premiera filmului lui Cristian Mungiu, in Polonia el este tot o premiera cinematografica. Mult asteptatul "Katyn", realizat de Andrzej Wajda, a avut premiera oficiala pe 17 septembrie, in prezenta presedintelui tarii, a prim-ministrului si a urmasilor ofiterilor polonezi ucisi in padurea Katyn de sovietici. Filmul va intra astazi pe marile ecrane din Polonia si este anuntat cum se cuvine de toata presa. Cel mai important cotidian polonez, "Gazeta Wyborcza", consacra in editia sa tiparita de marti o pagina intreaga numai cronicii filmului, iar intr-o alta pagina publica un articol in care intervieva cativa urmasi ai unor ofiteri ucisi la Katyn. Potrivit jurnalistilor polonezi, proiectia de gala a provocat o tacere mormantala in sala Teatrului Mare din Varsovia. Veteranul Andrzej Wajda, care are azi 81 de ani si al carui tata a fost ucis la Katyn, a facut un film "cu gust de cenusa", dupa cum spune criticul de la "Gazeta Wyborzca", un film grav si epifanic. "Katyn" este primul lungmetraj de fictiune realizat in Polonia pe acest subiect nu doar tragic, dar si controversat, avand in vedere faptul ca Rusia n-a recunoscut oficial nici pana azi atrocitatile comise de serviciile sale secrete in 1940. Primii care au anuntat ce s-a intamplat in padurea de langa Smolensk au fost nazistii, care au descoperit mormintele comune in 1943. Filmul lui Andrzej Wajda isi propune probabil si sa forteze o recunoastere oficiala si o asumare de catre Rusia a responsabilitatii, dar ramane de vazut daca acest lucru chiar se va intampla. Dupa cum spun supravietuitorii intervievati de cotidianul varsovian, poate cel mai dramatic aspect legat de Katyn a fost faptul ca multi ani rudele ofiterilor n-au avut nici o veste despre ai lor, n-au stiut daca sunt morti sau in prizonierat in Siberia. Filmul "Katyn" este important nu doar pentru evenimentul istoric de care se ocupa, dar si pentru echipa sa. Scenariul e scris de Andrzej Wajda impreuna cu Andrzej Mularczyk. Director de imagine e reputatul Pawel Edelman, coloana sonora inglobeaza si lucrari de Penderecki, iar distributia numara mari actori polonezi. Filmul este una dintre cele aproape 30 de premiere cinematografice, cate inregistreaza Polonia anual.


Aflata in aceste zile in Polonia prin amabilitatea Institutului Polonez de la Bucuresti, am putut ieri sa-l cunosc, impreuna cu colegii mei romani, pe rectorul celei mai prestigioase scoli poloneze de film, cea de la Lodz. Jerzy Wozniak ne-a spus ca dintre cele 154 de festivaluri de film studentesc ce au avut loc anul trecut in lume, studentii lui au luat 64 de premii. Nu e de mirare, la aceasta scoala au invatat toti marii regizori polonezi: Andrzej Wajda, Roman Polanski, Kawalerowicz sau Kieslowski. si Pawel Edelman tot la Lodz a invatat. Rectorul, care a fost multi ani directorul televiziunii nationale din Varsovia, ne-a aratat si scarile celebre ale facultatii si ne-a explicat cum in urma cu multi ani marii regizori si operatori de mai tarziu beau bere de la bufetul aflat la un metru si stateau toata ziua pe scari discutand despre film. Treapta a saptea e cea mai norocoasa, ni s-a spus. Pe ea statea de obicei Roman Polanski. Am fost indemnati de rector sa le transmitem studentilor romani invitatia de a veni sa studieze la Lodz. Pentru ca Romania e de-acum membru UE, ei nu trebuie sa plateasca taxa de scolarizare. Pot da examen de admitere in limba romana, dupa care trebuie sa petreaca un an pregatitor pentru invatarea limbii poloneze. si pe urma vin cei cinci ani de studiu, pentru care nu trebuie sa plateasca. La Lodz studiaza tineri din toata lumea, pana si din Japonia si Coreea. "Numai din Rusia nu sunt, dar nu din motive politice", spune rectorul. Adevarul e ca rusii au scoala lor de film, la fel de buna. La Lodz, in oras, a filmat si David Lynch "Inland Empire". Nu prea recunosti orasul in filmul americanului, dar despre asta, poate in alta corespondenta.

e film, le cinéaste polonais Andrzej Wajda l'appréhendait autant qu'il le désirait. Il s'était fait la promesse intime de le réaliser, il y a des anné

e film, le cinéaste polonais Andrzej Wajda l'appréhendait autant qu'il le désirait. Il s'était fait la promesse intime de le réaliser, il y a des années. A 81 ans, il vient enfin d'accomplir ce qu'il appelle "un devoir" : porter à l'écran l'histoire de sa vie et un pan de la mémoire polonaise contemporaine, le massacre de Katyn.




En septembre 1939, 22 000 officiers polonais sont faits prisonniers par l'Armée rouge, qui vient d'envahir la Pologne, en vertu du pacte de non-agression germano-soviétique Ribbentrop-Molotov. En mars 1940, Staline donne l'ordre de les fusiller : 4 410 d'entre eux disparaissent dans la forêt de Katyn, près de Smolensk, dans l'Ouest russe. D'autres charniers seront découverts ailleurs. Cette hécatombe à huis clos a longtemps été maintenue secrète.

Andrzej Wajda a dédié Katyn à ses parents. A son père, Jakub, capitaine au 72e régiment d'infanterie, mort à Katyn. A sa mère, Aniela, qui "s'est nourrie d'illusions jusqu'à sa mort, car le nom de mon père figurait avec un autre prénom sur la liste des officiers massacrés", a-t-il confié, mercredi 12 septembre, à l'avant-première de son film, à Varsovie. Pourtant, ce long métrage n'est "ni une quête personnelle de la vérité ni une bougie funéraire posée sur la tombe du capitaine Jakub Wajda", se défend le cinéaste.

Le film s'ouvre la journée du 17 septembre 1939. Sur un pont, deux foules de civils polonais se croisent, s'entrechoquent en sens inverse : l'une fuit l'Armée rouge, l'autre la Wehrmacht. Dès les premiers plans, Andrzej Wajda donne le ton en cadrant une femme paniquée, à la recherche de son mari, un officier de l'armée polonaise.

Car, à la surprise générale, Katyn n'est pas un film sur les officiers, mais sur leurs épouses, leurs mères ou leurs soeurs restées en Pologne, coupées de la vérité puis soumises à la censure. Les personnages centraux ne sont pas à chercher parmi les gradés en uniforme, mais chez leurs femmes, à travers le drame qu'elles vivent dans leur foyer de Cracovie. D'ailleurs, Wajda n'a pas attribué de nom de famille à ses officiers. Le capitaine de cavalerie Andrzej, le lieutenant Jerzy, le lieutenant "Pilot" ne sont au final que des archétypes.

Le film est pétri de métaphores, qui portent la griffe d'Andrzej Wajda, celles qui l'ont fait connaître dès Kanal (1957) ou Cendres et diamants (1958) : un christ baroque couché à terre, parmi les blessés de guerre, et caché sous la cape d'un officier ; deux soldats de l'Armée rouge qui déchirent le drapeau national polonais bicolore et se servent de la moitié rouge en guise de fanion soviétique ; une plaque funéraire brisée pour avoir affiché l'indicible sous le régime communiste : "Tué à Katyn en avril 1940."

Il y a surtout cette scène finale, une apothéose de réalisme, détaillée sans jamais virer au pathos. On y voit l'exécution méthodique, à la chaîne, minutieusement orchestrée par le NKVD, la police secrète de Staline, des 4 410 officiers de l'armée polonaise en avril 1940, dans la forêt de Katyn. Des agents soviétiques tirent machinalement, à une cadence soutenue, une balle de revolver Walther dans la tête des officiers. Les victimes s'effondrent, leurs corps jetés dans les fosses communes. Puis vient le ballet des bulldozers qui défoncent le sol et recouvrent les cadavres.

Dans les salles polonaises à partir du 17 septembre, date toute symbolique - celle du début de l'invasion de la Pologne en 1939 par les troupes soviétiques, seize jours après la Wehrmacht -, la dernière oeuvre de Wajda est une première. Aucun metteur en scène polonais n'avait réussi à porter ce chapitre sombre de l'histoire à l'écran. Pour s'assurer du succès, Andrzej Wajda a confié les images à Pawel Edelman, chef opérateur du Pianiste, de Roman Polanski, et la musique au compositeur Krzysztof Penderecki. Le scénario s'appuie sur le roman d'Andrzej Mularczyk, Post mortem.

Salué par une grande partie de la presse, le dernier film de Wajda n'échappe pas à la critique. On lui reproche d'escamoter l'Histoire en ne faisant que survoler le destin des officiers polonais qui ont pu survivre à Katyn par la promesse, imagine-t-on, de servir la propagande soviétique. Il y a aussi la critique mordante de l'hebdomadaire Newsweek qui, dans son dernier numéro, fustige "la sortie la plus attendue de la saison" comme "la célébration d'un mythe national et un échec artistique".

Sans oublier la réaction d'un spectateur, mercredi lors de l'avant-première, apostrophant Andrzej Wajda : "Avec Katyn, vous laissez entendre que si vous n'aviez pas menti sur la mort de votre père à Katyn, vous n'auriez pas pu entrer à l'université sous le régime communiste et que l'école polonaise du film n'aurait jamais existé ?" Agacé, le cinéaste s'est dérobé. "Permettez, monsieur, que je confesse mes péchés plus tard, et devant une autre audience", a-t-il sèchement répondu.

Le film relance surtout le débat public sur le massacre des officiers, à un moment où la Pologne tente toujours de recomposer son passé. A ce jour, on ignore toujours le sort de 7 000 soldats et officiers polonais disparus après avoir été faits prisonniers par l'Armée rouge en 1939. L'Allemagne nazie avait mis au jour certains charniers après la rupture du pacte Ribbentrop-Molotov et l'invasion de l'URSS en 1941. Mais les noms des premiers officiers retrouvés dans le charnier de Katyn n'avaient pas été révélés avant 1943.

Quant au massacre lui-même, il avait été récupéré par la propagande nazie, qui accusait Moscou de ce massacre, puis par les Soviétiques, qui en rejetaient la faute sur Berlin. Il fournit l'occasion de rompre les relations diplomatiques de l'URSS avec le gouvernement polonais en exil à Londres.

Il a fallu attendre 1990 pour que le régime soviétique finissant admette, par la bouche de Mikhaïl Gorbatchev, sa responsabilité, tout en évitant de parler de "crime contre l'humanité, imprescriptible", comme le demandait Varsovie. En 1992, Boris Eltsine avait remis aux autorités polonaises un document d'archives prouvant formellement l'implication des autorités soviétiques dans le massacre. Aujourd'hui, le travail de mémoire est inachevé : il bute sur la décision, prise par Moscou, en 2005, d'interdire l'accès aux dossiers concernés.

De son côté, la Pologne aura attendu soixante-sept ans pour voir le massacre de Katyn porté à l'écran. "Ce film n'aurait pas pu voir le jour avant. Ni en Pologne communiste, soumise à la censure, ni à l'étranger, qui s'est désintéressé du sujet", a conclu le réalisateur.

Avec Andrzej Wajda, Katyn vient enfin de prendre place dans le septième art. "Ce n'est que le premier. D'autres films suivront", a prédit le metteur en scène.