This time next week Berlin will be suffering a hangover second only to the one that followed the collapse of the Wall 20 years ago. Even though a whole generation has now grown up across Europe with no first-hand memory of the dismembered city and the divided country that surrounded it, the scenes from 9 November, 1989, are lived and relived as the defining images of the end of the Cold War.
Andrzej Wajda's Oscar-nominated feature takes its core from one of the most shocking massacres of the Second World War, when, in March 1940, 22,000 Poles were executed by the Soviets in Katyn forest, including 8,000 military officers.
The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 brought cultural and political liberation to the former Eastern bloc. But as these nations soon discovered, the collapse of communism was catastrophic for cinema. Even now, 20 years later, many film-makers are struggling to adjust to a harsh new artistic and economic climate.
Part coming of age story set in the aftermath of the Warsaw Uprising, and part personal testament by lead actress Krystyna Janda on her husband, Edward Klosinski's battle with cancer during filming,...
Award Central: Actress to receive world cinema tribute -- The European Film Academy will honor French actress Isabelle Huppert with its European Achievement in World Cinema tribute at the European Film Awards ceremony on Dec. 12 in Bochum.
Director Andrzej Wajda is no stranger to making films about Poland’s fight to keep its identity in the face of oppression - having first made his name with his harrowing account of the 1944 Warsaw uprising in Kanal way back in 1957. With Katyn, he gives us another masterstroke. The Katyn massacre was the mass murders [...]
The detention of Polish-born film director Roman Polanski in Switzerland on a decades-old sex charge is causing ructions in Poland's establishment. Now the Polish PM has stepped into the ring.
Some pretty revolting blind eyes being turned in the movie world, as reported in the Herald: Petitions from leading film directors and other cinema figures, including one signed by the celebrated Polish director, Andrzej Wajda, focused most of their anger on the Swiss authorities. The fact that the Polish-born Mr Polanski was arrested as he arrived [...]
Last Week : Polish MPs have passed legislation making it obligatory to chemically castrate certain sex offenders. Under the law anyone found guilty of raping children under 15, or close relatives, will be given drugs to lower their sex drive. ............ They were part of a bill that also increases jail terms for incest and paedophilia, and criminalises any attempt to justify paedophilia. This Week...
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