The Polish Film School was established in 1957, the same year the young Wajda launched his international career after capturing the Special Jury Award at the 10th Cannes Film Festival for Canal.
Separately, the Polish Film Institute plans a series of events including discussion panels, a national poster exhibition, meetings with artists and of course special screenings of the best Polish Film School movies on TVP and during film festivals in Gdynia, Kazimierz Dolny and Wrocław. PFI has also arranged a meeting with cinematographers Jan Laskowski and Witold Sobociński and a showcase of the latest publications on the movement that started in the early 60's. ???
Meanwhile at the Plus Camerimage Festival, the program includes screenings of such titles as Farewells by Wojciech Has, Nobody's Calling by Kazimierz Kutz and Samson, another firlm directed by Wajda. The festival is also screening short etudes made by students of the Warsaw Film School and Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing.
The Polish Film School's achievements will soon be made available to an even wider audience. Next month PFI is introducing boxed DVD sets of Polish films, Natalia Chojna of PFI's press office told FNE. The first release will contain Canal, Lotna and Ashes and Diamonds by Wajda; Good Bye, Till Tomorrow by Janusz Morgenstern and The Last Day of Summer by Tadeusz Konwicki.
The 50th anniversary is also being seen as an occasion to introduce the Polish Film School to an international audience because the DVD collection will be subtitiled in English, French, German and Russian, Chojna said. In addition, printed supplements will be included offering profiles of the directors and analyses by prominent Polish film academics such as Marek Hendrykowski, Rafał Marszałek and Andrzej Bukowiecki.
"The movies will be shown during the most important movie festivals starting from Cannes and Berlin, probably in the form of retrospectives," Chojna said.