Zygmunt Hübner
Witek runs after a train. Three variations follow on how such a seemingly banal incident could influence the rest of Witek's life.
The 1930s. An investigetion after founding a dead body on the street of Cracow.
Set in the 16th century in the Grand Inqusition period. Ruprecht stops overnight at an inn, and falls in love with the lovely Renata. She however, has fallen under the spell of Count Henryk, whom she believes to be an "angel of fire". The girl eventually brings him before the Inquisition.
Warsaw 1941. Gestapo captures a Home Army soldier who knows the code needed to read the list of agents working in Reich. Tortured Wójcik asks the doctors for poison.
In 1931, just before the New Year, in a house of architect Henryk Zaremba scream rips the night. The daughter of Zaremba is found killed in her bedroom, obviously killed with a pickaxe. The police arrives and starts the investigation. Rita Gorgonova, the governess of the girl and also lover of Zaremba becomes the main suspect. Film based on real events - investigation and court trials of the most famous pre-war Polish murder case. Despite being historically accurate the movie is both involving and entertaining since the case was simple on the surface, but very complicated in details.
Andrzej Wajda's English-language film of a novella by Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, aka Joseph Conrad, about a young man in his first command as a sea captain. A series of crises prove incredibly difficult for his new authority, for the sea is curiously becalmed and the crew is weakened by feverish malaria. When the first mate's fear convinces many that the ship is haunted and cursed by the malevolent spirit of the previous captain, the young man must cope with their superstition as well as the conspicuous absence of much-needed medicine.
Basia and Krystyna are trying to smuggle clothes, perfumes and other things purchased abroad through the border back to Poland during communist period. They are accompanied by Basia's son Piotrek, infatuated with Krystyna. At the beginning everything appears to go smooth. Suddenly, however, the custom officer Roman stops pretending being fooled and demands body search which has to be carried out by next shift.
Retired police captain tells a reporter about his latest action - carried on their own investigation into the mysterious death of the girl. Captain MO, Gray, conducts her own investigation into the death of Eve Salm, called Princess. She was a witness in a process in which the defendant pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nine years in prison. Gray has doubts and risked their lives seeking to apprehend the real killer.
Westerplatte is a small peninsula at the entry to the Gdansk Harbour. Before World War II, it functioned as a Polish ammunition depot in the Free City of Danzig/Gdansk. Its crew consisted of one infantry company and a group of civilians, 182 people in total. It was the only Polish guard-post at the mouth of the Vistula River, with as little as five sentries, one field cannon, two anti-armour guns and four mortars. It was the first obstacle to Hitler's predatory march across Europe. The first shots of World War II were fired here. This film tells the story of Westerplatte's courageous defenders.
Sampson is one of several Andrzej Wajda films harking back to his youth during the Nazi Occupation of Poland. Many of these concern not only the struggle between good and evil, but also between passive and impassive. The hero is a Jewish youth. He, like his family, has always been silent and undemonstrative in the face of prejudice. Now he stands up for his right to survive, and in so doing represents the fighting spirit that culminated in the 1943 Warsaw Uprising. It was originally titled Samson, but re-spelled as Sampson upon its American release to avoid confusion with a sword-and-sandal epic of the same name.
