17/06/2005

Post mortem the new feature by Andrzej Wajda, the most famous of Polish filmmakers, Oscar winner in 2000, deals with the crimes at Katyn in 1940. The idea for the project, recalling the massacre of thousands of Polish officers by Stalin’s police, has been in Wajda’s head for years.

The film was supposed to have been made in 2003, but Wajda broke off his collaboration with Wlodzimierz Odojewski, the Polish screenwriter of the film. Now, finally, Wajda can realize his ambition from a screenplay by Andrzej Mularczyk, well-known 75 year old journalist and writer for whom the project represents the most « beautiful way of closing my career ». For Mularczyk, is not strictly speaking an historical film since the action centres on the personalities of people who are still with us, who must live with these sad memories."

The Katyn massacre question is a sore point in relations between Poland and Russia. Though it is true that Russia admitted responsibility for the crimes at Katyn, it refuses still to consider it as an imprescriptible crime, something demanded by the Poles. Whereas the crimes by the Nazis have ben visited on numerous occasions by Polish filmmakers, the crimes of Stalin remained unfilmed. It was this necessity that allowed Wajda to count on a lot of help, for instance from Jan Dworak, director of Polish Public Television (TVP).

Before filming Post mortem, the director of Cendre et Diamant launched an initiative for a series of 10 short films dedicated to Solidarnosc, which, this year, celebrated its 25th anniversary. The Wajda production will take a new look at the theme of L’homme de fer (Wajda testimony of 1981). The other films will be directed by great Polish filmmakers such as Krzysztof Zanussi, Jan Jakub Kolski, Feliks Falk, Wojciech Marczewski, Robert Gliñski, Krzysztof Krauze. The program will premiere in August 2005.

(Translated from French)