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Post Mortem, by Andrzej Wajda

WAJDA’S NEW FILM INVESTIGATES POLISH PAST AND RECALLS THE MEMORY OF HIS OWN HERO-FATHER

Poland is living an uncovered war to its past and against the collaborators of the old communist regime. Cinema tries to follow these new trends and promises at least one curious work about these new times of soviet revisionism. The novelty announced for the 60th Cannes film festival, in a private, only for guests screening, has master Andrzej Wajda’s signature, exactly one of the most respectable names of Polish intelligence, who fought with all his means and films against terror and soviet influence in his country.

“Post Mortem”, produced by Polish Television, will be shown only once at the festival’s market. It is justified, because Wajda’s new film is still being finalized, in post-production. This will be the first feature by the filmmaker since the honorary Oscar he received from Hollywood Academy in 2000.

Wajda is one of the main names of cinema in Eastern Europe. He is the precursor of a movement similar to Nouvelle Vague, which led the trends in French cinema in the 1960’s. He got international notoriety with “Canal” (1957 - Critics Award in the Cannes Festival) and “Ashes and Diamonds” (1958 - Critics Award in the Venice Festival). In 1980 his “The Conductor”, about a musician in creative crises facing the pressure and bureaucracy of socialism, was the opening film of the 5th São Paulo International Film Festival, after winning the Silver Bear at the Berlinale.

On the following year, “The Man of Iron” won the Golden Palm in Cannes and revealed to the world the advent of an unheard worker’s union movement in a communist country, in the Gdansk dockyards, led by the new international media star, Lech Valessa.

Now, with “Post Mortem” Wajda seems to want to go deeper in the denounces of abuse of authoritarian regimes in his country, since the time of the German Nazi invasion of Poland until its liberation and occupation by the Soviet army. The new film is partially based on his own family’s history and recalls the heroic memory of Polish officers, murdered in the forests of Smolensk in 1940. This will be the first Polish film to present historical proof of the execution of thousands of innocent victims, Wajda’s father among them.

According to the promotional material of the film, “This is a story of patriotism and love stronger than fear, a story of brave Poles, who put their lives on scale in order to save the nation, which may be openly revealed to the world only more than 60 years since the date of the events. Wajda has put all his heart into it - watching it means to understand the pain, which stayed with him for his entire life.”

“The good Lord God gave the director two eyes”, says Wajda. “one to look into the camera, the other to be alert to everything that is going on around him”. This is the opening message in his official site http://www.wajda.pl, which deserves a visit.

For further information:
www.festival-cannes.org

English version: Laura Rebessi