Synopsis

It’s 1976 in Poland. The nearly graduated film student Agnieszka (Krystyna Janda in her impressive feature film debut) is about to convince an important editor of a television station about her idea: She wants to film a documentary about the life of a former mason and hero of labour, Mateusz Birkut, whose outstanding career came to a sudden halt under mysterious circumstances in 1952. After a long period of debating, the young woman eventually receives tapes with historical material, the necessary equipment and the permission to start her work. She begins her own research, chases after possible witnesses and tries to find the cause for the abrupt changes in Birkut’s professional life. During her work, she not only has to face the truth about the man’s sinister fate, but also finds out a great deal about the tragic history of her country since the 1950s. Formally speaking, Andrzej Wajda’s highly praised, epic fresco of a film is reminiscent of a story in between a story. The director delivered a “ruthless, intelligent imaginative way of reckoning” (DER SPIEGEL) with the Stalinist time. It took the movie legend 17 years to receive permission to shoot this controversial masterpiece and another two years to screen his fascinating cinematic story abroad. A milestone in Polish cinematography.