Wajda to return with film on embattled artist Strzemiński
PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge
11.06.2015 08:56
Veteran director Andrzej Wajda is set to make a film about Władysław Strzemiński, the avant-garde artist who tried to stand up to Poland's post-war communist regime.
Andrzej Wajda. Photo: wikimedia commons/P. Drabik
The 89-year-old director had indicated he might return to the camera in February 2014, when he said there were still several films he hoped to make, one of which was about Strzemiński.
Now it has emerged that filming is due to begin in September this year, and Bogusław Linda has been cast in the lead role.
Linda, who has worked with Wajda before ('Man of Iron', 'Danton', 'Master Tadeusz') wrote on his Facebook profile that it will be “a privilege” to be a part of the project.
Painter and theorist Wladyslaw Strzemiński was a key figure in Poland's pre-war avant-garde. After the war, he co-founded an art school in Łódż that went on to become today's Academy of Fine Arts (it was renamed in his honour in 1988).
However, Strzemiński refused to conform to the tenets of Socialist Realism as promoted by Poland's new communist regime and he was dismissed from his post as teacher, and he ultimately died in poverty in 1952.
Wajda has described Strzemiński in the past as “one of the most wronged artists from the times of Socialist Realism.”
The director's last film, 'Wałęsa: Man of Hope', was released in 2013. He was awarded an honorary Oscar in 2000 for lifetime achievement. (nh)