TRIBUTE TO ANDRZEJ WAJDA
SPECIAL EVENING AT LOCARNO

One of the special events at the forthcoming Locarno International Film Festival will be a special evening devoted to the Polish director Andrzej Wajda. Monday, August 10th at 8.30 pm at La Sala.

The Locarno audience will have an opportunity to see the world première of a documentary made by four of Andrzej Wajda’s students – graduates of the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing (Warsaw), Andrzej Wajda: róbmy zdjecie! (Andrzej Wajda: Let’s shoot!) , presenting the truest and intimate portrait of this Master of Polish cinema, shot on the set of his most personal film Katyn. The documentary show will be followed by screening of the two recent features films of Wajda: Katyn and Tatarak (Sweet Rush).

ANDRZEJ WAJDA: LET'S SHOOT! is an extraordinary record of a few months of struggle on the set, showing an atmosphere of work and a picture of immense film machinery, and at same time presenting the truest and intimate portrait of the Master of Polish Cinema, the Oscar winner. In 1957 Andrzej Wajda won the Silver Palm in Cannes for his film 'Canal', along with 'Seventh seal' by Ingmar Bergman. We meet him 50 years later, as the author of many important films, such as 'Ashes and Diamonds', 'Man of Marble' or 'Danton', now directing one the most important films in his career, Katyn, about the massacre in which thousands of Polish officers, including Wajda's father, were murdered by the Soviets, during World War II - a tragedy left unspoken for decades. The film was produced by the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing. During the shooting of the film, 4 young documentary filmmakers - his former students had a chance to get closer and see how their Master works on his most intimate story. Extraordinary for his sensitivity, immeasurable passion, the feeling of mission and great diligence. But also in moments of tiredness, joy, failures, in conversations with people. Perhaps it is only on the set where one can see what Andrzej Wajda really is like.

KATYN, one of the director’s most striking films, breaks one of the great taboo subjects in the history of the Second World War: the Soviet secret police’s massacre in Katyn forest of 21,000 Polish prisoners of war in April 1940. For many years the Soviet Union’s official line was that Nazi Germany had committed this atrocity. Katyn was nominated for the best foreign film at the 2007 Academy Awards

TATARAK (SWEET RUSH), based on a short story by Polish writer Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz. Tatarak was presented in Competition at the last Berlinale and won the Alfred Bauer Prize, which is given to films that open new perspectives in the art of filmmaking. This film moves between fiction and reality, interweaving the fictional story of a woman having lost her lover with a poignant account given by its lead actress Krystyna Janda, about her own experience of bereavement.

Born in 1926, Andrzej Wajda is one of the most important Polish filmmakers of the last fifty years. A very prolific director, his work has received great critical acclaim and numerous prizes. His most famous films include Kanal (1957), Ashes and Diamonds (1958), Man of Marble (1977), Man of Iron (1981, Palme d’or at Cannes), Danton (1983), Holy Week (1995) and Pan Tadeusz (1999). He is also a theatre director, has been nominated for an Academy Award four times, most recently for Katyn in 2008, and 2000 received an Oscar for Lifetime Achievement.

(August 2009)