
Andrzej Wajda
Directing
Biography
Andrzej Wajda (born 6 March 1926) was a Polish film director. Recipient of an honorary Oscar, he was possibly the most prominent member of the unofficial "Polish Film School" (active circa 1955 to 1963). He was known especially for a trilogy of war films: A Generation (1954), Kanał (1956) and Ashes and Diamonds (1958). Four of his movies were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film: The Promised Land (1975), The Maids of Wilko (1979), Man of Iron (1981), and Katyń (2007). He passed away in 2016 at the age of 90. Description above from the Wikipedia article Andrzej Wajda, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Known For

The true story of how businessman Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand Jewish lives from the Nazis while they worked as slaves in his factory during World War II.
Schindler's List

The Bambi, often called the Bambi Award and stylised as BAMBI, is a German award presented annually by Hubert Burda Media to recognize excellence in international media and television to personalities in the media, arts, culture, sports, and other fields "with vision and creativity who affected and inspired the German public that year", both domestic and foreign. First held in 1948, it is the oldest media award in Germany. The trophy is named after Felix Salten's book Bambi, A Life in the Woods and its statuettes are in the shape of the novel's titular fawn character. They were originally made of porcelain until 1958, when the organizers switched to using gold, with the casting done by the art casting workshop of Ernst Strassacker in Süßen.
Bambi

Series of single made-for-television dramas.
Screen Two

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

Christopher Lee hosts this horror anthology series from Poland with stories from various classic authors.
Theatre Macabre

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

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

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

In the last few days of the Warsaw Uprising during World War II, a modest group of Resistance members remains. The band must take refuge in the sewers under the orders of leader Zadra, but it's only a matter of time before they will have to emerge. However, when they try, they are met only with intense hostility from the Nazis. Despite their attempts stay resolute through immense mental strain, it becomes increasingly apparent that they may be doomed.
Kanal

A story about the fate of two Krakow families, the action takes place in the years 1874-1914.
As the Days Come and the Days Go

“Broken Silence” is composed of five hourlong shorts from a quintet of international directors: Hungary’s Janos Szasz (“Eyes of the Holocaust”), Argentina’s Luis Puenzo (“Some Who Lived”), Russia’s Pavel Chukhraj (“Children From the Abyss”), the Czech Republic’s Vojtech Jasny (“Hell on Earth”) and Poland’s Andrzej Wajda (“I Remember”). The helmers, some descendants of Holocaust survivors, focus on the atrocities within their particular parts of the world, with testimonials, pictures and an overall tone as they pertain to each region’s culture and history.
Broken Silence

This impressionistic portrait of the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics pays as much attention to the crowds and workers as it does to the actual competitive events. Highlights include an epic pole-vaulting match between West Germany and America, and the final marathon race through Tokyo's streets. Two athletes are highlighted: Ethiopian marathon runner Abebe Bikila, who receives his second gold medal, and runner Ahamed Isa from Chad, representing a country younger than he is.
Tokyo Olympiad

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

In nineteenth-century Łódź, Poland, three friends want to make a lot of money by building and investing in a textile factory. An exceptional portrait of rapid industrial expansion is shown through the eyes of one Polish town.
The Promised Land

No description available.
Ziemia obiecana

A ruthless woman's adulterous affair with a drifter sets in motion a chain-reaction of murder and deception in a remote village in 19th Century Mtsensk.
Siberian Lady Macbeth

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

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

A violinist in a provincial Polish orchestra, whose husband is the director of the ensemble, on a visit to the US ties up with the world- renowned symphony conductor. As it turns out he was once in love with violinist's mother. The conductor, a slightly unstable hypochondriac, returns to Poland to lead the provincial orchestra. He also tries to revive old love affair using the violinist as a surrogate of her mother. Her husband is resentful of the conductor for both personal and professional reasons.
The Conductor

Set during the Nazi occupation of Poland, the story follows Michał, who witnesses the murder of his mother, wife and child and then is hurled into a life that literally is not his own; a surreal world littered with trapdoors, doppelgängers and wormholes.