Daniel Olbrychski

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The story revolves around Elisa, a young talented ballet dancer. After an unjust accusation at her school, she has to stop her studies. The events take her away from ballet but only for a short period of time.Read More »

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Based on a true story, this film focuses on three Polish labourers of vastly different social, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds. Unlike many of their recalcitrant contemporaries, the three men overcome their differences and work together. Eventually they create a textile factory founded upon the edicts of equality, trust, and respect.Read More »

A tale of medieval quest for a golden harp called “The Knight”.

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THE KNIGHT (RYCERZ), 1980. Poland.
With Piotr Skarga, Daniel Olbrychski. A haunting, austere ballad about a knight’s quest for a gold-stringed harp whose sound is said to bring peace and harmony. The film’s imagery is inspired by medieval icons. 81 min.Read More »

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Made after THE DAMNED, but before 1900, this operatic-style melodrama, about the industrial revolution in Lodz ca. 1895, is far better than either. Like the other two films, it takes an extreme situation in history and makes it more extreme, piling on the excess. Two examples here: a garden party that’s like a Roman orgy, with naked women, tigers in cages, etc., and a scene where a worker grapples with his boss and they fall into a giant machine which instantly spews out their bodies as huge chunks of raw meat. But whereas Visconti, and, particularly, Bertolucci, ultimately drown under their excesses, Wajda maintains total control over his narrative. Read More »

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“Rewizyta” is a film about the further fate of the protagonists of Krzysztof Zanussi’s films from the 1970s: “Family Life” (1970), “Camouflage” (1976) and “The Constant Factor” (1980). What happened to them? Where are they? How did they survive the decades that separate us from those times? The film takes the form of an interview conducted in the present day by a would-be suicide, the protagonist of “And A Warm Heart,” who, on the recommendation of a therapist, investigates whether human life can be successful. The interview scenes are juxtaposed with film excerpts. Years later, the same actors appear before the camera and answer the man’s questions.Read More »

Five years after Word War II Hungarian people are secretly arrested and taken to a labour camp without any judicial sentence. During the early 1950’s the very existence of the camp for political prisoners at Recsk was one of the Hungarian communist regime’s deepest secrets. Escape From Recsk tells the story of the only person who ever managed to escape successfully from Recsk – Hungary’s most notorious prison camp. He cherishes his hope by memorizing the names of fellow prisoners. The disclosure of the names of these prisoners in the West revealed the existence of the camp to the world and started the process that eventually led to dismantling the gulag camps in Central East Europe. Escape From Recsk captures the atmosphere of paranoia, humiliation and degradation that prevailed throughout the Stalinist gulag system. Even the guards do not trust each other in this nightmare world where betrayal is the only currency for purchasing small favours, and even life.Read More »

Scope is a prisoner on a behemoth space station and is chosen, like all his fellow prisoners, to ‘volunteer’ for the exploration of far-away planets. Landing on planet Australia 458, he is given a hero’s welcome with all the sex, booze, and violence that any one man can stomach. But as his new caretakers push him towards even more heinous and deplorable acts, Scope finds that his freedom comes with a high price; his own violent demise, broadcast live for the viewing pleasure of Australia 458’s inhabitants. Is there a way out? Or is Scope’s fate sealed?Read More »

“Kung-fu”. One of the genre-defining works of the cinema of moral concern. A group of friends, who drifted apart after March 1968, gets back together again to help of them, after he gets in trouble with the higher ups at work. The friends’ help brings results.
Awards: 1979 – Polish Film Festival, Gdańsk, best directorial debut; 1980 – 33rd International Film Festival, Locarno, FIRPESCI award; 1981 – Film magazine’s “Golden Camera” for the best film dealing with contemporary issues in 1980.Read More »

Quote:
THE KNIGHT (RYCERZ), 1980. Poland.
With Piotr Skarga, Daniel Olbrychski. A haunting, austere ballad about a knight’s quest for a gold-stringed harp whose sound is said to bring peace and harmony. The film’s imagery is inspired by medieval icons. 81 min.

New York Film Festival
London Film Festival
Los Angeles Film FestivalRead More »