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SUMMARY:Film : a summer of cinema with Andrzej Wajda
UID:https://instytutpolski.pl/brussels/en/2026/06/16/a-summer-of-cinema-with-andrzej-wajda/
LOCATION:
DTSTAMP:20260629T184500
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Warsaw:20260629T184500
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Warsaw:20260709T184500
DESCRIPTION:To mark the centenary of the birth and the tenth anniversary of the death
of Andrzej Wajda, the Polish Institute Brussels and Cinéma Galeries are
pleased to invite you to an exceptional film series: A Summer of Cinema
with Andrzej Wajda.
Considered one of the leading figures of 20th-century European cinema,
Wajda accompanied, film after film, the major upheavals of Polish history,
from the Warsaw Uprising and the Katyn Massacre to the emergence of the
Solidarity movement. Deeply rooted in history, his work also offers a
universal reflection on memory, freedom, resistance and human dignity.
Through a selection of iconic films, this series offers a journey through
different periods of both Wajda’s career and Poland’s 20th-century
history.
Over four summer evenings, discover Ashes and Diamonds, Man of Iron, Sewer,
and Katyn — four perspectives on the tragedies, hopes, and struggles that
shaped modern Poland.
[caption id="attachment_20004" align="alignleft" width="241"] ©
Documentary and Feature Film Studio – WFDiF[/caption]
Ashes and Diamonds / Popiół i diament, 1958, 103 minThe film takes place
in 1945, immediately after the end of the Second World War. Its main
character is a former resistance fighter assigned to assassinate a
Communist official.
By adapting the novel by Jerzy Andrzejewski, which was appreciated by the
authorities of Communist Poland, Wajda significantly toned down its
propagana aspects. Ashes and Diamonds focuses on the tragic fate of Polish
anti-Communist resistance fighters in the postwar period. The director
shifts the audience’s attention and sympathy away from an aging Communist
activist toward a young partisan, highlighting his moral dilemmas, inner
conflicts and tragic destiny.
Wajda also broke with the socialist realist aesthetic promoted by the
regime. He adopted innovative formal techniques and developed a highly
personal cinematic language based on powerful, sometimes “baroque”
imagery, rich symbolism, and morally nuanced character portrayals.
This artistic freedom, combined with an interpretation less aligned with
the regime’s expectations, met with resistance from Communist
authorities. Excluded from the official competition at the Cannes Film
Festival, Ashes and Diamonds was nevertheless screened at the Venice Film
Festival, where it won the International Federation of Film Critics Prize,
establishing Wajda’s international reputation.
[caption id="attachment_20258" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] ©
Documentary and Feature Film Studio – WFDiF[/caption]
 
Man of Iron / Człowiek z żelaza, 1981, 153 min
[caption id="attachment_20226" align="alignleft" width="187"] ©
Documentary and Feature Film Studio – WFDiF[/caption]
Set in 1980, the film immerses viewers in the events unfolding in Gdańsk
during the birth of the Solidarity trade union. Its main character, Maciej
Tomczyk, is a young worker involved in the movement that would become
Solidarity. The film follows the lives of workers and their families,
highlighting tensions between collective commitment, personal convictions,
and individual responsibility.
Addressing contemporary reality, Wajda created a film that is both a
historical chronicle and a human drama. Made “in real time,” almost
simultaneously with the events it depicts, the film incorporates
documentary footage and was partly shot in the Gdańsk shipyards, within
the reach of the social movement itself. This approach gives the picture a
remarkable authenticity as well as a palpable sense of political urgency.
[caption id="attachment_20254" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] ©
Documentary and Feature Film Studio – WFDiF[/caption]
 
Sewer / Kanał, 1957, 91 min
[caption id="attachment_20224" align="alignleft" width="224"] ©
Documentary and Feature Film Studio – WFDiF[/caption]
In Sewer, we follow a group of insurgents during the final days of the
Warsaw Uprising of 1944. After fighting above ground, they seek refuge in
the city’s sewers. Their journey takes them through what resembles the
circles of a Dantean hell: poisoned air, sewage water, darkness and the
bodies of the dead.
The screenplay was inspired by the wartime experiences of Jerzy Stefan
Stawiński, a participant of the Warsaw Uprising. Once again, Wajda
employed techniques innovative for the time, combining two distinct modes
of representation: a realistic war reportage and an apocalyptic human
drama. The claustrophobic sewer sequences play a central role,
progressively intensifying the characters’ sense of confinement and
despair.
The film’s dark atmosphere is also reinforced by its sound design. The
use of instruments previously absent from  film scores marked a clear
break with the socialist realist aesthetic that had dominated Polish cinema
music.
Simply addressing the subject of the Warsaw Uprising was a bold act, as the
topic had remained largely absent from film screens under Communist rule.
Despite official reluctance, Kanal won an international acclaim and
received the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1957.
[caption id="attachment_20256" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] ©
Documentary and Feature Film Studio – WFDiF[/caption]
Katyn / Katyń, 2007, 122 min
[caption id="attachment_20235" align="alignleft" width="210"] ©
TVP[/caption]
Katyn, one of Wajda’s most personal films, is dedicated to the Katyn
Massacre, a tragedy long suppressed by the Soviet regime. The film revisits
the 1940 crime in which thousands of Polish officers and prisoners of war
were executed by the NKVD.
The story is told through the eyes of soldiers and their families,
particularly women who wait in vain for the return of their husbands, sons
and brothers, unaware of their fate. The personal dimension of the project
is crucial: Wajda’s own father was among the victims of the massacre. For
decades, the director carried the ambition of dedicating a film to this
family and national tragedy.
The film also examines how the tragedy was distorted, exploited, or denied
for decades during the communist period and reflects on the work of
historical memory that followed.
Released in 2007, Katyn received international critical acclaim. It was
nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and received
the Excellence Award at the European Film Awards in 2008.
[caption id="attachment_20255" align="alignnone" width="1024"] ©
TVP[/caption]
The series will be inaugurated by Andrzej Wolski, a French-Polish filmmaker
based in Paris. Director of the documentary Wajda by Wajda (2016), made
only months before Wajda’s death, he also selected the films presented in
this series.
He will attend the opening screening on June 29 to introduce the programme
and to share his perspective on Wajda’s work.
A director of documentaries and feature films, Wolski has made around forty
films for French television, the BBC and TVP. A specialist in historical
and biographical portraits, he notably co-wrote, together with Agnieszka
Holland, the screenplay for Europa Europa, which was nominated for an
Academy Award in 1991.
His work consistently focuses on major figures and key moments in Polish
and European history. He has devoted films to personalities such as Jerzy
Giedroyc, Józef Czapski, Jan Karski and Jan Nowak-Jeziorański.
His relationship with Andrzej Wajda occupies a special place in his career.
A few months before his death, as he approached his 90th birthday, the
master of the Polish cinema invited Wolski to revisit the most important
works of his career. These meetings gave rise to Wajda by Wajda, an
exceptional documentary that serves both as a reflection on cinematic art
and as Wajda’s artistic testament.
 Andrzej Wolski et Andrzej Wajda © Grzegorz Hartfiel
PROGRAMME :
Monday, June 29, 20266:45 PMAshes and Diamonds / Popiół i diamentIn the
presence of Andrzej Wolski
Thursday, July 2, 20266:30 PMMan of Iron / Człowiek z żelaza
Monday, July 6, 20267:00 PMSewer / Kanał
Thursday, July 9, 20266:45 PMKatyn / Katyń
All films will be screened in their original version with English
subtitles.
Cinéma GaleriesGalerie de la Reine 261000 Brussels
Tickets
This series is part of the “2026 – The Year of Andrzej Wajda”
programme
Partners:  
TVP • 33 mm Platform • Wytwórnia Filmów Dokumentalnych i Fabularnych
(Documentary and Feature Film Studio – WFDiF)
 
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