Directed by Andrzej Wajda • 1981 • Poland

One of many peaks in the long career of the Polish maestro, Man of Iron is a sequel to Wajda’s 1977 drama Man of Marble. Winkel (Marian Opania), a disgruntled radio reporter, is sent to Gdańsk to discredit Tomczyk (Jerzy Radziwiłowicz), one of the leaders of Solidarity, Poland’s first independent labour union and the force behind the eventual fall of communism in the country (real-life Solidarity leader and future Polish president Lech Wałęsa appears in the film as himself). Slowly, the story emerges of Tomczyk and his father, Mateusz Birkut – the Stakhanovite hero of the earlier film. Wajda was able to complete the film during a brief interregnum in state censorship of little over a year before the imposition of Martial Law; and while it was never allowed to reach its domestic audience, his non-chronological narrative and his capacity to situate intimate drama within the sweep of popular history won him the Palme d’Or at Cannes.

MAN OF IRON • CZŁOWIEK Z ŻELAZA
Directed by Andrzej Wajda
Written by Aleksander Ścibor-Rylski
Cinematography by Edward Kłosiński
Music by Andrzej Korzyński
Starring: Jerzy Radziwiłowicz, Krystyna Janda, Marian Opania

In Polish with English subtitles

Winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, 1981