During the 1655 war between Protestant Sweden and Catholic Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth some Polish-Lithuanian nobles side with Swedish king Charles X Gustav while others side with the Polish king Jan Kazimierz.

Based on the most spectacular part of Sienkiewicz’s Trilogy, The Deluge was adapted to the screen by Jerzy Hoffman in the spirit of traditional interpretation of the work to “brace the heart,” stressing the internal transformation of  Andrzej Kmicic from adventurer and chieftain to an exemplar of courage and patriotism.

The film’s cast encompassed all the major actors of the Polish cinema. Almost four hundred actors appeared in primary and secondary roles and thousands of extras took part. The creation of the film was one of the largest productions in the history of the contemporary Polish cinema. The film represents the third time that Sienkiewicz’s story has been brought to the screen – the first was made in 1912, the second in 1915.

The screenplay was worked on by Jerzy Hoffman, Adam Kersten and Wojciech Zurkowski and whole platoons of scholars were consulted regarding the historical scenes. Large parts of the film were shot in the Soviet Union, in the environs of Minsk they built Wodokty, Wolmontowicza and Lubicz, and many of the battle scenes were filmed near Kiev, in the basin of the Dniepr River. Twenty three thousand costumes and thousands of artifacts were procured.

The 1974 film, which was shot with one camera and one lense, established an all-time Polish box-office record with 25 million admissions and went on to win an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Feature.

 

This is the story of three characters (brothers Tomek and Jacek and their neighbor Magda), each of them is in their own way lonely and alienated. The title character makes herself secluded. Tomek’s alienation results from his neurological disease, and Jacek contacts the world mainly via the Internet. This is also a film about love. Love of one brother to the other and of one alienated human being to the other. All together it creates a very universal picture with a Polish entourage.

Based on a well-known Polish novel with the same title the movie re-tells a true life story of a group of scouts called ”Szare Szeregi” (Gray Ranks) during the Nazi occupation of Warsaw and the liberation of one of its members (imprisoned and tortured by the Germans) through a maverick military action in board daylight right under the enemy’s nose known ”Action at the Arsenal” which was the biggest single feat of the sort undertaken by a youth resistance organisation in all of occupied Europe during WWII.

The story of a boy suffering from cerebral palsy and his troubled growing up during Poland’s transition in the l980s and 90s.

A video showing a murder scene falls into wrong hands..

The most spectacular Polish spy of the Cold War era, colonel Ryszard Kuklinski, informs Americans about the communist block’s top secrets in the face of the upcoming martial law.

A group of women with children are bathing in the river. They are approached by a group of men. Encouraged, one of them who are an alpha male comes closer to one of the women. Rejection results in violence. A brutal and, at the same time, truly beautiful dance of naked bodies, silently reflected in the water surface, begins. Inspired by the behavior of hippos, Dumała’s film illustrates a gender clash and the rare dialogue of bodies taking advantage of the enemy’s weaknesses.

Rok 1969. Fascynujący się lotnictwem Adam zostaje powołany do wojska. Jednak, ku własnemu rozczarowaniu, dostaje przydział do służby w… Marynarce Wojennej.  Z Antkiem, starszym bratem, wyruszają nad morze.  Podczas kilkudniowej podróży przez Polskę odwiedzają starych znajomych i zawierają nowe znajomości.

The depiction of the life of Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of Poland’s Solidarity movement, Lech Walesa, as events in the 1970s lead to a peaceful revolution.

Starting out in the 1950s with classics such as Ashes and Diamonds, Andrzej Wajda has had one of the longest and most consistently productive careers of any living filmmaker. Much of that career has been spent reflecting on Polish history – and so it seems inevitable that Wajda should eventually get around to making a biopic of Lech Walesa, whom he has known personally for many years.

Walesa – played here by convincing lookalike Robert Wieckiewicz – was the shipyard electrician who became world famous in the 1980s as the charismatic leader of the Polish trade union movement Solidarity, which fought to improve conditions for workers under the authoritarian Communist regime.

Read review: www.smh.com