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Oscar-winning Polish film director Andrzej Wajda has died aged 90, the Polish Filmmakers' Association has confirmed. He made more than 40 feature films in a career spanning 60 years. Many of his films - including Kanal, Man of Marble, Man of Iron and Katyn - were inspired by Poland's turbulent wartime and communist history. In 2000, Wajda was awarded an honorary Oscar for his contribution to world cinema.

"Katyn", a recent Polish movie production about the mass genocide of Polish elites by the Soviet NKVD at Stalin's personal order, is well-received in Italy. The Italian Prime Minister himself encouraged world leaders present at the NATO summit to see the picture. Although the movie received so many good reviews, the company distributing copies of the movie to cinemas across the country is complaining they encounter serious prejudice and hostility. Martio Mazarotto of the company said in an interview that the world of culture and also of distribution of movies within Italy is almost monopolized by extreme leftists, for whom...

Poles apart – in film as in life Ralph Seliger • Film Published: 17 April 2009 “Katyn,” the most recent work of the great Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda and a finalist for the Best Foreign Language Oscar in 2008, was held over for a month in its run at New York’s Film Forum, the city’s premier art house. (See page 11.) It depicts the Soviet murder of thousands of captive Polish army officers during the spring of 1940 and reverberations of the massacre’s aftermath several years later. Dire, in some instances fatal, consequences befell Poles who insisted on the truth,...

'Katyn' leading in NYT internet poll 04.02.2008 Katyn - the movie by Polish Oscar winning director Andrzej Wajda, nominated for the Academy Award this year in the category of non-English language films, is leading in the New York Times internet poll. The movie is getting many votes from Poland, as Polish internet users in the country and abroad are joining forces to vote other films out. The results of the poll are, of course, not binding. The official results of the academy awards are to be announced in L.A. on February 24.

A Movie That Matters By Anne Applebaum Posted: Friday, February 1, 2008 ARTICLES The New York Review of Books Publication Date: February 14, 2008 Anne Applebaum reviews Katyn, directed by Andrzej Wajda and written by Andrzej Mularczyk and Andrzej Wajda. The ruins of a Russian Orthodox monastery, 1939: paint peels from the walls, light filters in from the cracks in the ceiling, cigarette smoke whirls through the air. Primitive wooden camp beds are stacked up high, one on top of the other, for the monastery has been turned into a prison. The prisoners, soldiers in khaki-brown wool uniforms and black...

Wajda’s Katyn nominated for Oscar 22.01.2008 15:47 ‘Katyn’, last year’s box office hit directed by Poland’s most renowned director, Andrzej Wajda, has been nominated for an American Academy Award in the Best Foreign Language Film category. The ceremony is to take place 24 February. The last time a Polish film received a nomination in this category was 1982, when another Wajda movie, Man of Iron was nominated but then withdrawn from the contest by the then Polish authorities. In the history of American Academy Awards, seven Polish films have received nomination in the Best Foreign Language category, but none of...

Wajda's "Katyn" shown in Moscow 28.10.2007 Polish Embassy in Moscow is again the venue of the screening of "Katyn", a movie on the Katyn Forest Massacre by Oscar winning Polish film director Andrzej Wajda. Katyn was shown there for the first time yesterday. The audience, mostly diplomats, human rights activists and artists were moved. "Poles, forgive us," said Russian human rights activist Siergiej Kovaliov after he saw the film. In 1940, over twenty two thousand Polish POWs - both military and civilian - were executed by the Soviet NKVD. The movie tells a fictional story of the victims and their...

Wajda’s Katyn Poland’s Oscar candidate Sunday, September 23. 2007 Katyn, the latest film by veteran Polish movie maker Andrzej Wajda, will be Poland’s candidate for ‘Best Foreign Film’ in next year’s Academy Awards. Katyn – which had its premier last week in Warsaw – tells the story of the massacre by over 20,000 Polish officers by the Soviet NKVD in 1940. Some of Wajda’s family were murdered during the massacre. Wajda’s latest movie was among 16 Polish films which a special committee had to chose from to send to the Academy in Los Angles for consideration for nomination in the...

Last night I was lucky enough to attend the Warsaw premiere of Andrzej Wajda's "Katyn". Even though my Polish is minimal, there was no need to be fluent in order to understand the film's terribly powerful and poignant depictions of fear, frustration, love, anger, despair, revulsion, and propaganda lies . The story is very personal. Mr. Wajda's father was one of the victims of Katyn, and Mr. Wajda based the story on the women who waited in vain for their men to return, just like his own mother had done.

Katyn , an album preceeds premiere of film by Andrzej Wajda 24.08.2007 A book entitled Katyn is to be released on September 3rd , that is two weeks before the premiere of Andrzej Wajda’s film under the same title. The album contains photographs, archive documents and reproductions of historical maps and will be an introduction to the film. The album will also contain stills from the set of Wajda’s film, and personal commentaries of the Oscar winning Polish director. Wajda, whose father was killed in Katyn , says the film will be a story of the Katyn lie, a story...

Wajda begins filming Katyn movie 01.12.2006 Krakow comes to a standstill as shooting of Oscar winning director Andrzej Wajda’s new film on the 1940 Katyn massacre begins. Report from Krakow by Robert Kusek The major streets and squares closed. The city veiled in mist and covered with artificial snow. Swastikas on the buildings. Men in Nazi uniforms. Krakow has once again become a location for the shooting of a new movie by Andrzej Wajda – one of the most renowned Polish filmmakers who in 2000 was presented with an honorary Oscar for his outstanding contribution to world cinema.. “Post mortem”...

Wajda on Katyn Poland’s renowned film director Andrzej Wajda has begun work on a film about the Katyn massacre of Polish officers by the Stalinist NKVD secret services in 1943. 05.10.06 After the discovery of the mass graves Soviet Russia denied any responsibility attributing the killings of 1943 to Nazi Germany but there was too much evidence pointing to Soviet guilt. Over the years of the communist rule in Poland the Katyn issue had been covered with a cloth of silence. With the coming of the end of 1989 the issue had been acknowledged by Russia with president Gorbachov admitting...

Katyn: the post mortem 15.05.2006 Renowned film director, Andrzej Wajda, has begun work on a major film about the 1940 Katyn massacre of over 20,000 Polish officers by Soviet forces. After the discovery in 1943 of the mass graves Soviet Russia denied any responsibility, attributing the killings three years earlier to Nazi Germany. But the evidence pointing to Soviet guilt is overwhelming, say most independent historians. During communist rule in Poland the Katyn issue was covered by a cloth of silence. With the coming of the end of the regime in 1989 the issue was acknowledged by Russia, with President...

Polish director Wajda makes film on Katyn atrocity Wed 15 Feb 2006 1:43 PM ET By Erik Kirschbaum BERLIN, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Celebrated Polish director Andrzej Wajda said on Wednesday he aims to finish a film close to his heart this year about the 1940 Soviet massacre of 15,000 Polish soldiers, including his own father, in the Katyn forest. Wajda, in Berlin to collect a lifetime achievement award from the Berlin Film Festival, said most Poles always knew it was a Soviet atrocity even though propaganda during World War Two and afterwards wrongly tried to pin the blame on...