Andrzej Wajda - The pleasure of making 'The Promised Land' compared with Gierek's era (121/222)

To listen to more of Andrzej Wajda’s stories, go to the playlist:    • Andrzej Wajda (Film director)  

Polish film director Andrzej Wajda (1926-2016), whose début films portrayed the horror of the German occupation of Poland, won awards at Cannes which established his reputation as storyteller and commentator on Polish history. He also served on the national Senate from 1989-91. [Listener: Jacek Petrycki]

TRANSCRIPT: Why did we immerse ourselves in this world with such joy? Because all around us, unfortunately Gierek's era, you could already see that nothing would come of this either, that all our hopes that something will come alive, will happen, that we'll awake from this hopeless sleep and have the opportunity for some kind of initiative, all of this disappeared so at that moment a film about energy, enterprise, a film saying that everyone answers for himself and directs his own life was a fantastic antidote to the hopeless stagnation that Gierek had bestowed on us after we had had such high expectations of him. So all of these elements paved the way for our film after which the making of the film was just one long happy experience. We were constantly changing location, new characters kept arriving, the scenes kept changing. Halfway through the film, Witold Sobociński had to leave because he was making a film abroad, so Edward Kłosiński remained and continued shooting. A second camera was operated by Wacław Dybowski. I have to say that it was these two cameras, and at times three, which each time gave more material which proved of great value during editing and gave this film a lot of energy.