The selection of six films consisting of film adaptations of literary works is not arbitrary; at the beginning of the 20th century, when the artistic potential of the new medium first became evident, Polish authors took to adaptations of literary works, especially those by Stefan Žeromski and Henryk Sienkiewicz



Since Polish films have not been shown in our movie theaters in regular distribution, the fact that Poland historically had a vastly richer film tradition than many other countries has been almost completely forgotten. Polish cinema has been a powerful force in its time due to its large number of productions and its overall sense of completeness. These attributes were earned thanks to the efforts of such internationally acclaimed names such as Aleksander Ford, Andrzej Wajda, Jerzy Kawalerowicz, Andrzej Munk, Roman Polanski, Jerzy Skolimowski, Krzysztof Zanussi and Krzysztof Kieslowski. Recognition is also due to many less famous but equally important authors such as Ryszard Ordynski, Jozéf Lejtes, Wojciech Jerzy Has, Kazimierz Kutz, Jerzy Passendorfer, Tadeusz Konwicki, Jerzy Antczak, Tadeusz Lomnicki, Wanda Jakubowska, Agnieszka Holland, as well as Janusz Zaorski, whose film Mother of Kings is to be shown in Tuškanac.

It is a well-know fact that Polish cinema is characterized by strong documentaries (in the 1950’s they paved way for Poland’s “black film”), as well as world acclaimed authors of animated films (Walerian Borowczyk, Jan Lenica, Miroslaw Kijowicz, Karel Zeman, Jerzy Kucia...). Many regard Boleslav Matuszewski as the founder of filmology as a theoretical discipline. Actress Apolonia Chalupiec, working under the pseudonym of Pola Negri, achieved vamp status; that icon of Polish film, the talented actor Zbigniew Cybuloski, tragically squished to death by a train, is still regarded by many as the James Dean of Eastern European film.

The selection of six films consisting of film adaptations of literary works is not arbitrary; at the beginning of the 20th century, when the artistic potential of the new medium first became evident, Polish authors took to adaptations of literary works, especially those by Stefan Žeromski and Henryk Sienkiewicz. Two legends of Polish cinema, Aleksander Ford and Andrzej Wajda, managed to undermine the State-imposed socialist matrix because of their fruitful collaboration with writers of the 1950’s. The nearly omnipotent and socially concerned Ford made the film Five Boys from Barska Street (1954), in which he audaciously chastised the delinquent populous and inaugurated a blackly critical approach to reality characterized by heavy ideological and social controversies. Remaining on this track, he was even more directly critical in his film The Eighth Day of the Week (1958) based on a short story by a rebellious young writer Marek Hlask, (at the time popular in our region as well). This film was immediately banned and first saw daylight a few decades later. The young Andrzej Wajda was equally passionate about destroying rigid State-imposed rhetoric, especially in his trilogy from the 1950’s consisting of: A Generation (an unconventional portrayal of one man’s wartime coming-of-age), Canal (a suggestive evocation of the Warsaw uprising of 1944) and Ashes and Diamonds (1958), which - due to its treatment of the crucial conflict between ideologically opposed groups of Polish anti-fascists at the end of WW II - ultimately results in a sternly critical and disturbing work of suggestive visual style. The film was based on Jerzy Andrzejewsk’s novel and screenplay.

In the late 1970’s Wajda kept his recognizable polemical discourse, for example in his film The Promised Land (1975), based on the novel by Nobel winner Wladyslaw Reymont.

Polish cinema is also known for historical spectacles based on literary works (Knights of the Teutonic Order, Faraon, Colonel Wolodyjowski...). After directing several author films such as Real End of the Great War, Night Train, Mother Joan of the Angels, this genre became a favorite for the director Jerzy Kawalerowicz. His 160-minute long Quo vadis (2001) is primarily famous for being the most expensive film in the long history of Polish cinema.

It will be interesting to see whether Tadeusz Konwicki adequately managed to transfer the monumental work Valley of the Issa (1982) by the Nobel winner Czeslaw Milosz (famous for The Captive Mind) to the big screen. (Petar Krelja)