Lech Wałęsa: “Strike is not a historical film”
Since the shoot of Volker Schlöndorff’s Strike began a year and a half ago, Anna Walentynowicz (founder of the Polish trade union Solidarity) has been protesting against the making of the film, whose lead role is based on her life.
While Walentynowicz has been opposing it even more fervently since its release on Polish screens on February 23, the reaction of former Polish president and Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa to the film has been much more temperate.
Starring Katharina Thalbach (Walentynowicz) and Andrzej Chyra (Wałęsa), Schlöndorff’s title is based on the life of Walentynowicz, a model employee at the Gdańsk shipyard.
In 1970, after getting involved with the opposition, she was arrested and tortured. She continued her fight and eventually caused the outbreak of a general strike, which led to the overthrow of Communist rule in Poland.
It is certain that neither the director nor the producers expected so much bitterness from Walentynowicz, whom the film was intended to honour. However, its numerous biographical inaccuracies and historical untruths about the Solidarity movement have resulted in Walentynowicz’s threat to bring the case to court, although the producers have stressed that the film is fiction and not a documentary.
According to Wałęsa, the film was made in order to be accessible to Polish audiences as well as those in Central and Western Europe. After its premiere, the former Polish president said the film highlighted "simple and spontaneous attitudes. It does not entirely reflect the strategy of participants in the 1980 strike but it is a good reflection of the situation up to 1970," he added.
When questioned if he agreed with the complaints made by Walentynowicz, Wałęsa replied in the negative: "Some things were different in reality. But it is not a historical film. It is a film that shows the attitude of a certain generation".
Winner of two Bavarian Film Awards [Best Actress for Katharina Thalbach and Best Cinematography for Andreas Höfer (see news)], Strike was co-produced by Poland’s Paisa Films and Germany’s Provobis, Mediopolis and BR Bayerischer Rundfunk), with backing from the Polish Film Institute (PISF).
Best Film are handling the film’s Polish release.
(Translated from French)
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