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VENICE 2013 Poland

World avant-premiere for Wajda and Wałęsa in Venice

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- Walesa. Man of Hope forms with Man of Marble (1976) and Man of Iron (1981) a sort of tryptic around a common motif: that of the fierce struggle for truth and freedom

World avant-premiere for Wajda and Wałęsa in Venice

The 70th edition of the Venice Mostra coincides with the 70th birthday of Lech Walesa, a good sign for Polish director Andrzej Wajda and the team of his latest film Walesa. Man of Hope [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, which will be screened as a world avant-premiere on the Lido.

As underlined by Andrzej Wajda, Venice already brought him success and recognition in the past: “Venice played an important role in my life. In 1998, I receive a Golden Lion for the entirety of my work. It was also in Venice that my film Katyn [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Andrzej Wajda
interview: Michal Kwiecinski
film profile
]
received the Nastro d'Argento Europeo 2009. It was in this city, in 1959, in a small cinema (not as part of the festival because the communist authorities would not have allowed this film in any festival), that my film Ashes and Diamonds was noticed and began its international career.”

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Lech Wałęsa, the legendary leader of the Solidarnosc movement and first democratically elected president after the fall of the communist regime in Poland, is nothing like the monumental figure we imagine in Wajda’s film. On the contrary, the director puts him at the centre of an intimate story: that of a husband, father, a simple factory worker, a man living in a modest apartment in a suburban city, who became an iconic leader, a charismatic figure capable of bringing the masses together. Wajda combines intimate scenes with archive documents that give a great idea of the unfolding of the historical and political transformation, which, over the years, marked the whole of Europe.  

Walesa. Man of Hope forms with Man of Marble (1976) and Man of Iron (1981) a sort of tryptic around a common motif: that of the fierce struggle for truth and freedom.

The film, played by an excellent cast including Robert Więckiewicz, Agnieszka Grochowska, Zbigniew Zamachowski, Mirosław Baka and Maciej Stuhr, was entrusted to the camera of Paweł Edelman. Walesa was produced by Akson Studio, in coproduction with Telekomunikacja Polska S.A, Narodowe Centrum Kultury, Telewizja Polska S.A. and Canal+ Cyfrowy S.A, and with the co-funding of the Polish Film Institute.

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(Translated from French)

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