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: We made the film in a great hurry but very happily and with a lot of energy because that's what a political film demands. 'The Shadow Line', well, there were times of reflection there whereas a political film has to impose itself on the audience. To impose itself on the audience, the film's director needs to give much more energy as must the actors who surround him. A political film has to be acted fast, it has to be immediate, loud and expressive. I think that 'Man of Marble' possessed all of these elements. Everything was going well up to the moment when we had to screen this film. Who did I need to show it to? I knew that the Minister of Cinematography didn't have much to say here. Since permission to make this film had come from the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Culture, Józef Tejchma, I realised that he should be the first to see this film. And so we arranged that no one else only he and I would watch this film because I knew that the film's fate didn't depend on me but on him. I had no other allies, there was no one else whom I could ask for help. He saw this film and as he wrote in his memoires, he feared what would happen next because, essentially, he would be held responsible. I have to say that, without going into any details of what happened, his decision cost him his career. The paradox was that nothing happened to me. I could have always gone abroad and made films there, but he couldn't be a Deputy Prime Minister abroad. I could also have become a national hero, my film - a legend, no one would have known what was in the film since no one would have seen it. The film would have been stored somewhere, a marvellous film and I would have been the wronged film director. I still had all of this to come whereas he had nothing more to look forward to. I understand that he might have thought that his comrades would support him, some circle. There had been some hope as the film was being made. Its message was that there were those who had once built Poland alongside the hero-workers, and were still building it. Perhaps it was going to be some sort of legend, but no one had imagined that this film would expose the system itself. How was it that Józef Tejchma had decided... it was his suicidal decision. He did try to protect himself but that was an even worse idea and the outcome was even worse than anyone could have supposed. Namely, the cinema authorities advised that the film should only be shown in one cinema. Well, a film that was being written about, talked about, a film with my name on it, a film about the Fifties, a Polish film in just one cinema - nothing worse could have been dreamed up because it was obvious that the cinema would be beseiged by hoardes of people.