Ignacy Machowski
1920 - 2001
Ashes and Diamonds
Andrzej Wajda
Zbigniew Cybulski, Ewa Krzyżewska
A young academy soldier, Maciek Chelmicki, is ordered to shoot the secretary of the KW PPR. A coincidence causes him to kill someone else. Meeting face to face with his victim, he gets a shock. He faces the necessity of repeating the assassination. He meets Krystyna, a girl working as a barmaid in the restaurant of the "Monopol" hotel. His affection for her makes him even more aware of the senselessness of killing at the end of the war. Loyalty to the oath he took, and thus the obligation to obey the order, tips the scales.
Ashes and Diamonds
Pociag
Jerzy Kawalerowicz
Lucyna Winnicka, Leon Niemczyk
Two strangers, Jerzy and Marta, accidentally end up holding tickets for the same sleeping chamber on an overnight train to the Baltic Sea coast. Also on board is Marta's spurned lover, who will not leave her alone. When the police enter the train in search of a murderer on the lam, rumors fly and everything seems to point toward one of the main characters as the culprit.
Night Train
Liberation: The Break Through
Yuri Ozerov
Fritz Diez, Nikolay Olyalin
A grandiose military film epic, which does not know analogues in world cinema: the history of the Great Patriotic War from the Battle of the Kursk Bulge to the installation of the Banner of Victory over the Reichstag - "Liberation".
Liberation: The Break Through
Eroica
Andrzej Munk
Edward Dziewoński, Barbara Połomska
Tells two tales set during WWII: A seemingly feckless and selfish man finally takes up arms in the national struggle against the Nazis. Set in a POW camp, Polish inmates cling to their hopes for an eventual escape, encouraged by the legendary escape of one of their own.
Eroica
Orzeł
Leonard Buczkowski
Wienczysław Gliński, Aleksander Sewruk
Based on a true story of Polish submarine "Orzel" (The Eagle): September 1939, "Orzel" is coming to Estonian neutral harbor in Tallin. Under pressure from Germany Estonians have intern the ship. Commander Grabinski decides to escape to England through the Baltic Sea, without any maps that has been confiscated and with only small amount of fuel on board.
Orzel
Dom bez okien
Stanisław Jędryka
Wiesław Gołas, Danuta Szaflarska
All the ambiance of an old-fashioned circus comes across with great clarity in this otherwise routine psychological tale about a mean-spirited mime and his effects on his colleagues. The small, traveling circus has been sliding downhill for awhile, and unless some new life is infused into its acts, its future does not look very rosy. Into this precarious situation comes a new mime with the uncanny ability to sap the confidence of his fellow performers. If he continues for long in this vein, no one will be able to believe they have any talent left at all.
The Impossible Goodbye
Opening Tomorrow
Janusz Morgenstern
Gustaw Holoubek, Irena Malkiewicz
A budding playwright is thrilled to find out that his play will be performed at a prestigious theater, but a series of problems pile up, along with the general feeling that opening night will be disastrous.
Opening Tomorrow
Cień
Jerzy Kawalerowicz
Zygmunt Kęstowicz, Adolf Chronicki
A man has been found dead after having been hurled from a train. As security agents, police and a medical examiner piece together his identity, three accounts emerge: one set during World War II, one in the immediate aftermath of the war, and one in contemporary Poland.
Shadow
Kontrakt
Krzysztof Zanussi
Maja Komorowska, Tadeusz Łomnicki
Bearing traces of the old Anton Chekhov play The Wedding, The Contract is set during an "arranged" ceremony. The bride and groom barely know each other, but this matters not at all to their tradition-bound families. At the last minute, the bride balks. Only slightly nonplused, the groom's father, a status-seeking doctor, decides to go ahead with the expensive reception anyway. Polish director Krzysz Zanussi uses this scenario to stick it to capitalist corruption, and to society's destruction of the individual spirit. Leslie Caron, the one recognizable member of the cast, is outstanding as a wealthy, over-the-hill ballerina who happens to be a kleptomaniac.
The Contract
Zbrodniarz i panna
Janusz Nasfeter
Zbigniew Cybulski, Piotr Pawłowski
A modest and plain young Małgorzata leads a very boring life as a cashier. One day a robber riddles her bank car with bullets, kills driver and two security guards and takes the money. The police finds out that the stolen banknotes are being spent at a fashionable spa resort. The only way to find the criminal is to favor Małgorzata with a seaside holiday in the company of a handsome Captain as her "brother"...
The Criminal and the Lady
