Andrzej Wajda - Man Of Iron

Frequently regarded as one of the greatest and most important films to ever come out of Poland, the Oscar nominated and Palm d’or winning Man Of Iron (Czlowiek z Zelaza) is legendary director’s Andrezj Wajda’s final and most moving and poignant film regarding the Solidarity Movement and its struggles to gain recognition in his native country.

Still producing work even into his mid 80s, and following on from Artificial Eye’s release earlier this year of Katyn, Wajda’s epic Man Of Iron will be released on DVD courtesy of Mr Bongo Films on 29 June 2009.

Following on from his seminal Man Of Marble, Man Of Iron continues the story of Maciej Tomczyk, a young worker involved in the anti-Communist labour movement. In Warsaw in 1980, the Regime sends Winkel, a weak, alcoholic TV hack to Gdansk to dig up dirt on the shipyard strikes, particularly on Maciek, who has become an inspirational figure in the Union movement following the killing of his father in the December 1970 protests. Posing as a sympathiser to the cause, Winkel interviews people who know Tomczyk, including his detained wife, in an effort to undermine and destroy the growing support behind the movement.

The film uses actual news footage of the 1968 and 1970 protests and of the later birth of free unions and Solidarity which it interweaves throughout the stories of a son coming to terms with his father, a couple falling in love, a reporter searching for courage and a nation undergoing historic, if all too fleeting, change.

Awards

1981 Cannes Film Festival - Winner – Palm d’or – Andrzej Wajda
1981 Cannes Film Festival – Winner – Prize Of The Ecumenical Jury – Andrzej Wajda
1982 Academy Awards – Nominated – Best Foreign Language Film
1982 Cinema Writers Circle Awards – Winner – Best Foreign Film
1982 – London Critics Circle Film Awards – Winner – Director Of The Year – Andrzej Wajda



SPECIFICATIONS

PAL DVD 9 All Regions
Running Time 147 mins
Polish with English subtitles
2.35:1 Colour