In the late 1970s, when the conflict between the State and the citizens of Poland was imminent, a new trend emerged in cinematography?the ?cinema of moral unrest.? All the films in this trend have one common denominator: an unusually cutting critical view of the state of the society and its morals, human relationships in the work process, public and private life. It is more than logical that Krzysztof Kieslowski would have belonged to this trend; he had long been concerned with the moral problems of the society, and paid attention to them throughout his film career with increasing urgency.
As a student at the Polish State Film School and later as a director working under government sponsorship, Roman Polanski learned to make films with few resources. Using only a few trained actors (there are but three characters in his first feature) and a hand-held camera (due to the unavailability of sophisticated equipment) Polanski managed to create several films that contributed to the international reputation of the burgeoning Polish cinema.
Together with Roman Polanski, Jerzy Skolimowski is the most remarkable representative of the second generation of the Polish new wave. Younger than Wajda, Munk, or Kawalerowicz, these two did not share the hope for a new society after World War II. They are more skeptical filmmakers, to the point of cynicism at times.
The death camps were liberated decades ago. Auschwitz and Birkenau, Chelmno and Dachau?the ABCDs of the Final Solution?have long been silent memorials to the mass murder of millions. Despite this passage of time?and despite the media-induced impression that Steven Spielberg?s Schindler?s List is the only movie ever made which confronts the mass extermination of a people during World War II?the Holocaust has long been a topic for filmmakers. One such filmmaker is director Agnieszka Holland.
Holland is a Polish Jew who was born scant years after the end of World War II. The leg
Wanda Jakubowska decided to become a film director at a time when this occupation was rather unusual for a woman. It was even more unusual in a country such as Poland where the economical and technical conditions for film development were lacking. In spite of that fact, towards the end of the silent film era many people appeared who were enchanted by the medium of film and at the same time realized its social and artistic power. Those enthusiasts, Jakubowska among them, founded an avant-garde group, START (Society of Devotees of the Artistic Film), which began to bring to life?from the theo
