
Man of Iron, CzĆowiek z Ć»elaza, 1981, 147 min.
Sunday, November 2, 7:00 pm
Director: Andrzej Wajda
Screenwriter: Aleksander Ćcibor-Rylski
Principal Cast:Jerzy RadziwiĆĆowicz, Krystyna Janda, Marian Opania
Winner of the Palme dâOr at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival and an Academy Award nominee, Man of Iron takes up the story of Andrzej Wajdaâs previous 1976 movie entitled Man of Marble. In Man of Iron, the great Jerzy RadziwiĆowicz stars as Maciej Tomczyk, a union organiser at the Gdansk shipyards, whose character is modeled on real-life Solidarity leader Lech WaĆÄsa. RadziwiĆowicz, who also played the role of Mateusz Birkut, in the 1976 film Man of Marble , is now both Birkutâs son and in flashback, the father. The film depicts the rise of the Solidarity worker's union movement and complicated human fates in the dawn of a new political era. It is an homage,as well as testimony to the price paid by the determined labourers who opposed the authorities. The film shows what the strike at the GdaĆsk shipyard was like and where the smart resistance of the Polish shipyard workers stemmed from. It was made during the brief thaw in Communist censorship that appeared between the formation of Solidarity in August 1980 and its suppression in December 1981, and, as such ,it is remarkably critical of the Communist regime.