LIAS Film Series: "Man of Iron"
11. Dec
In the LIAS film series in cooperation with the SCALA arthouse cinema, international films on cultural and socially critical topics are accompanied by introductions and discussions every month.
Wednesday, December 11th 2024, 7pm
Location: SCALA Arthouse Cinema | Apothekenstr. 17 | 21335 Lüneburg
Language: English
Free admission
Introduction by LIAS Senior Fellow Alex Demirović.
In his impressive political film „Man of Iron”, Andrej Wajda tells the story of a journalist, who gets pulled into the polish workers’ uprisings of the 1980s. Wajda’s film was censored in Poland.
Radio reporter Winkel is commissioned by the Polish government to collect defamatory material about a committed member of the new Solidarność movement at the striking Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk. When Winkel immerses himself in the life story of the striking worker and interviews his companions, he changes his political stance.
In the course of his research, Winkel meets Agnieszka, Tomczyk's determined wife, and learns about the tragic events at the Gdansk shipyard in 1970 that shaped Tomczyk's path to becoming an activist and strike leader. Little by little, Winkel develops sympathies for the striking workers and increasingly comes into conflict with his mission and his loyalty to the regime.
The film was made during a brief lull in communist Poland between the founding of Solidarność in August 1980 and its suppression in December 1981. Archive footage of the suppressed workers' uprising in Gdansk in 1970, in which over 40 people lost their lives, makes the film a role model in the fight against censorship and political oppression to this day.
