It will soon be one year since the great filmmaker Andrzej WAJDA died, bequeathing the world a cinematographic oeuvre which makes him one of the most important directors in the history of Polish cinema. In the spring, Flagey held a retrospective in his honour. Now, cinema lovers in the north of the country will have the chance to (re)discover his creations.
Antwerp’s Cinema Zuid, in collaboration with the Polish Institute Brussels, will screen one film from the 65-year career of Andrzej WAJDA every Friday in September and October. This retrospective will begin with his war trilogy and then take in his political films before concluding with his historical dramas, including his last work, Blue Flowers (Powidoki). The nine films which have been selected as stages in the homage which will be paid to him are:

• A generation (Pokolenie)
• Kanał 
• Ashes and Diamond (Popiół i Diament)
• Everything for Sale (Wszystko na sprzedaż)
• Man of Marble (Człowiek z marmuru)
• Without Anesthesia (Bez znieczulenia)
• The Maids of Wilko (Panny z Wilka)
• Danton
• Afterimage (Powidoki)

PRACTICAL INFORMATION
>>> Cinema Zuid (Waalsekaai 47, 2000 Antwerp) – see map
>>> Friday 1st September > Friday 27 October 2017
>>> €5 | €3

          A Generation (Pokolenie)          
>>> PL/1955/BW/87’/ FR-NLundertitles
A young worker joins the communist resistance fighting the Nazi occupier. He moves very swiftly from theory to action but cannot avoid clashing with the movement’s pro-British fringe.  Wajda’s first feature-length film is already clearly centred around essential themes, notably the ideological fault lines which run through Polish society.  
cast: Tadeusz Łomnicki, Ursula Modrzińska, Tadeusz Janczar

+++ on the website of Cinema Zuid

          Kanał         
>>> PL/1957/97’/ FR-NL undertitles
Warsaw, September 1994. The third Home Army platoon is reduced to 63 people, men and women, and cornered on all sides. Some of them take refuge in the sewers, hoping to escape the Germans. However, it would seem that some of them are like rats…
cast: Teresa Iżewska, Tadeusz Janczar, Wieńczysław Gliński

+++ On the website of Cinema Zuid

          Cendre et Diament (Popiół i Diament)          
>>> PL/1958/104’/ EN undertitles
When the country is liberated, communists try to take power in Poland. The youngest member of a faction of the illegal resistance movement receives the order to kill a communist officer. The night before his murder, he meets a young barmaid who helps him to look at life from a different angle.
cast: Zbigniew Cybulski, Ewa Krzyżewska, Wacław Zastrzeżyński

+++ On the website of Cinema Zuid

          Tout est à vendre (Wszystko na sprzedaż)          
>>> PL/1968/105’/ EN undertitles
In this film, Wajda mixes up reality and fiction to pay homage to Zbigniew Cybulski, the young cinema star and the hero of Ashes and Diamonds, who died at a young age and whom the film never mentions by name. This is the story of a director who is putting a film together and finds himself at a dead end when his lead actor is unable to join him. 
cast: Beata Tyszkiewicz, Elżbieta Czyżewska, Andrzej Łapicki, Daniel Olbrychski

+++ On the website of Cinema Zuid

         Man of Marble (Człowiek z marmuru)          
>>> PL/1976/BW+colors/160’/ FR-NLundertitles
20 years after the erection of his statue, a young filmmaker wishes to film a portrait of Birkut, the model worker. “Eastern cinema had never before dared to tackle this taboo subject: the falsification of facts by official History.” (F. Forestier).
cast: Jerzy Radziwiłowicz, Krystyna Janda, Tadeusz Łomnicki

+++ On the website of Cinema Zuid

The Maids of Wilko (Panny z Wilka)          
>>> PL/1979/color/118’/ EN undertitles
A Chekhovian autumnal and nostalgic meditation about how the years and boredom wash things away and beautiful women one once loved. Here, we discover a more poetic Wajda on the theme of the vain pursuit of lost time.
cast: Daniel Olbrychski, Anna Seniuk, Maja Komorowska

+++ On the website of Cinema Zuid

  Danton         
>>> FR, PL/1982/color/136’/ NL undertitles
In 1794, whilst the French revolution is grappling with serious problems (First Coalition, various counter-revolutions), Danton is opposed to the violence of Robespierre. With lucidity, Wajda, using the case of the orator, takes apart the eternal mechanics of political trials.
cast: Gérard Depardieu, Wojciech Pszoniak, Angela Winkler, Patrice Chéreau

+++ On the website of Cinema Zuid

Les Fleurs bleues (Powidoki)          
>>> PL/2016/color/ NL undertitles
In post-war Poland, the famous painter Władysław Strzemiński taught at the Lodz Academy of Fine Arts. He had achieved notoriety before the world war broke out due to his nature and the ‘unist’ movement which he helped to found. His students continued to regard him as the “saviour of modern painting” but the Ministry of Culture took an entirely different view. Unlike his counterparts who had complied with the party line and accepted the principles of socialist realism, Strzemiński refused to compromise when it came to his art. He refused to follow party orders, which led to him being expelled from the university and the Union of Artists. In spite of this, his students continued to visit him and take private lessons with him. They noted his theory of vision and set great store by his opinion on their work. Yet Strzemiński, who lost an arm and a leg on WWI, and who subsequently found himself without a source of income, slipped into severe poverty and his health declined. This did not prevent the communist authorities from continuing to work on ruining him. 
cast: Bogusław Linda, Zofia Wichłacz, Bronisława Zamachowska, Andrzej Konopka, Krzysztof Pieczyński, Mariusz Bonaszewski, Szymon Bobrowski, Aleksander Fabisiak

+++ On the website of Cinema Zuid

Andrzej WAJDA
Film and theatrical director; born March 6th 1926 in Suwałki, Poland; Education: Academy of Fine Arts, Krakow; Film School Łódź; Film Director 1954; Theater Dir. Teatr Stary, Cracow 1962-1998; Man. Dir. Teatr Powszechny Warsaw 1989-90; Hon. mem. Union Polish Artist and Designers (ZPAP) 1977; President Polish Film Assoc. 1978-83; ”Solidarity” Lech Wałęsa Council 1981-89; Senator of the Republic of Poland 1989-91; Presidential Council for Culture 1992-94; Founder: Center of Japanese Art and Technology, Krakow 1994;
Dr. h. c.: American University Washington 1981; University Bologna 1988; Jagiellonian University Krakow 1989; University Lyon 1995; University Libre Bruxelle 1995; Gdańsk University 2004; University of Warsaw 2005; Membre Institut de France 1997;

Prizes:
– State First Class Prize 1974;
– Order of the Banner of Labor (second class) 1975;
– Konrad Swinarski Prize 1976;
– Premio  David di Donatello Luchino Visconti, Italy 1978;
– Officer’s Cross of Order of Polonia Restituta;
– Order of  Kirill and Methodus (first class), Bulgaria 1978;
– BAFTA Fellowship 1982;
– Onassis Prize, Greece 1982;
– Oficier, Legion d`honneur 1982 France;
– Cesar Award, France 1983;
– Pirandello Artistic Award, Italy 1986;
– Kyoto Prize, Japan 1987;
– Felix European Film Awards – Lifetime Achievement Award 1990;
– Order of Rising Sun, Japan 1995; Premium Imperiale, Japan 1997;
– Golden Lion Life Achievement Award, Venice, 1998;
– OSCAR® American Film Academy – Lifetime Achievement Award 2000;
– Commandeur, Legion d`honneur  France 2001;
– Golden Bear Life Achievement Award, IFF Berlin 2006;
– European Film Award Prix FIPRESCI 2009.

Links

•  Cinema Zuid: http://www.cinemazuid.be/