Polish Film School
The change in political climate in the 1950s gave rise to the Polish Film School movement, a training ground for some of the icons of the world cinematography. It was then that independent Polish filmmakers such as Andrzej Wajda, Roman Polanski, Wojciech Has, Kieślowski, Zanussi, Bareja and Andrzej Munk often directed films which were a political satire aimed at stultifying the communist authorities in the most gentle manner as possible. However, due to censorship, some films were not screened in cinemas until 1989 when communism ended in Central and Eastern Europe. The Hourglass Sanatorium (1973) was so controversial, the communist government forbade Wojciech Has to direct for a period of ten years. The authorities also hired or bribed film critics and literary scholars to poorly review the film. The reviewers, however, were so ineffective that in turn the film was applauded in the West and won the Jury Prize at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival.