Polish Film Festival shows Wajda films

even films by the Polish director Andrzej Wajda will be the highlight of the fifth annual Polish Film Festival scheduled for Friday, November 10, through Thursday, November 16, at the Little Theatre. Wajda was honored in March by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with an Oscar for his achievements as a director.

The festival is sponsored by a grant from the Louis Skalny Foundation and is organized by the University's Skalny Center for Polish and Central European Studies.

The festival begins with the latest Wajda film, Pan Tadeusz, a saga of the daily life of Polish nobility and the longing for liberation by the armies of Napoleon. Other Wajda films being shown include The Shadow Line (Smuga Cienia), which tells Joseph Conrad's story of a Polish-born officer who becomes captain of a ship. Roly Poly (Przekladaniec) is a medical fantasy about organ transplants and Everything for Sale (Wszystko na Sprzedaz) features actors playing themselves in real life in a story about passion and desire. Samson (1961) develops the story of a Jewish man who leaves prison in 1939 and later flees the Warsaw ghetto, only to return and work in the underground. Birchwood (Brzezina) explores the basic human themes of love and death, while Wedding (Wesele) adapts a 1905 literary work by Stanislaw Wyspianski and builds patriotic themes into the wedding of a leading intellectual and a young peasant woman. Four films from other Polish directors also will be shown.

In addition, the Rochester Polish-American Invitational Art Exhibit will be on display in the Little Theatre Café Gallery through Saturday, December 9. A reception for the artists that is open to the public will be held on Wednesday, November 15, at 5:30 p.m.

Check the Little Theatre's Web site at www.little-theatre.com/polish.htm for a complete listing of the film festival's movies, dates, times, and ticket prices.

For more information about the festival call x5-9898.

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