page_title: Andrzej Wajda
section_title: Artistic recognition
hierarchical_section_title: Andrzej Wajda / Artistic recognition
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Andrzej Wajda na planie "Ziemi Obiecanej", 1974
context_page_description: Andrzej Witold Wajda was a Polish film and theatre director. Recipient of an Honorary Oscar, the Palme d'Or, as well as Honorary Golden Lion and Honorary Golden Bear Awards, he was a prominent member of the "Polish Film School". He was known especially for his trilogy of war films consisting of A Generation, Kanał and Ashes and Diamonds.
  He is considered one of the world's most renowned filmmakers whose works chronicled his native country's political and social evolution and dealt with the myths of Polish national identity offering insightful analyses of the universal element of the Polish experience - the struggle to maintain dignity under the most trying circumstances.
  Four of his films have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film: The Promised Land, The Maids of Wilko, Man of Iron and Katyń.
context_section_description: The 1970s were the most prolific artistic period for Wajda, who made over ten films: Landscape After the Battle (1970), Pilate and Others (1971), The Wedding (1972) – the film version of the famous Polish poetic drama by Stanisław Wyspiański, The Promised Land (1974), Man of Marble (1976) – the film takes place in two time periods, the first film showing the episodes of Stalinism in Poland, The Shadow Line (1976), Rough Treatment (the other title: Without Anesthesia) (1978), The Orchestra Conductor (1980), starring John Gielgud; and two psychological and existential films based upon novels by Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz – The Birch Wood (1970) and The Maids of Wilko (1979). The Birch Wood was entered into the 7th Moscow International Film Festival where Wajda won the Golden Prize for Direction.
  Wajda continued to work in theatre, including Play Strindberg, Dostoyevsky's The Possessed and Nastasja Filippovna – Wajda's version of The Idiot, November Night by Wyspiański, The Immigrants by Sławomir Mrożek, The Danton Affair or The Dreams of Reason.
  Wajda's later commitment to Poland's burgeoning Solidarity movement was manifested in Man of Iron (1981), a thematic sequel to The Man of Marble, with Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa appearing as himself in the latter film. The film sequence is loosely based on the life of Anna Walentynowicz, a hero of socialist labor Stakhanovite turned dissident and alludes to events from real life, such as the firing of Walentynowicz from the shipyard and the underground wedding of Bogdan Borusewicz to Alina Pienkowska. The director's involvement in this movement would prompt the Polish government to force Wajda's production company out of business. For the film, Wajda won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
  In 1983, he directed Danton, starring Gérard Depardieu in the title role, a film set in 1794 (Year Two of the French Republican Calendar) dealing with the Post-Revolutionary Terror. Made against the backdrop of the martial law in Poland, Wajda showed how easily revolution can change into terror and start to "eat its own children." For this film Wajda was honoured with the Louis Delluc Prize and a César Award for Best Director. In the 1980s he also made A Love in Germany (1983) featuring Hanna Schygulla, The Chronicle of Amorous Incidents (1986) an adaptation of Tadeusz Konwicki's novel and The Possessed (1988) based on Dostoyevsky's novel. In theatre he prepared an interpretation of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment (1984) and other unique spectacles such as Antygone, his sequential Hamlet versions or an old Jewish play The Dybbuk. In 1989, he was the President of the Jury at the 16th Moscow International Film Festival.
caption: Wajda during filming in 1974
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