Ania Szczepańska

Gdańsk, Poland, September 1980. Lech Wałęsa and other Lenin shipyard workers found Solidarność (Solidarity), the first independent trade union behind the Iron Curtain. The long and hard battle to bring down communist dictatorship has begun.

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

In 1967, extensive archaeological excavations took place near the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, during which over 16,000 objects belonging to deportees were uncovered. The excavations became the subject of a 14-minute documentary film, shot on location by director Andrzej Brzozowski. Ania Szczepańska followed in the footsteps of this film and the entire event with her film Unearthed, which she worked on for 14 years. Her documentary follows the author’s search for the circumstances surrounding the making of the film, and the significance of the excavations themselves.