A POSTCARD FROM A JOURNEY [1983]
year:
- 1983
release date:
- 5 III 1984
runtime:
- 78 min
directed by:
- Waldemar Dziki
written by:
- Waldemar Dziki based on the novel by Ladislav Fuks
director of photography:
- Wit Dąbal
cast:
- Władysław Kowalski [Jakub Rosenberg], Rafał Wieczyński [Dawid Grossman], Maja Komorowska [Mrs. Grossman], Halina Mikołajska [Grandmother Grossman], Janusz Michałowski [Michał Grossman], Jerzy Trela [the man who organises pills for Rosenberg], Amira El-Buhejsi [girl at Lipszyc’s], Sława Kwaśniewska [Lubelska], Janina Nowicka, Janina Tur [a washer woman], Mariusz Benoit [shopkeeper Cwibel], Bogusz Bilewski [Alojzy Moczko], Henryk Bista [Rabbi], Zygmunt Zintel [a clerk at the employment office]
edited by:
- Marek Denys
music by:
- Zygmunt Konieczny
production design:
- Andrzej Przedworski
produced by:
- Studio Filmowe im. Karola Irzykowskiego
executive producer:
- Jacek Szeligowski
awards:
-
• Koszalin Film Debut Festival "The Young and the Cinema" 1983: Journalists’ Award for Waldemar Dziki
• the Andrzej Munk Award for Waldemar Dziki
• Polish Feature Film Festival Gdańsk 1984: award for directorial debut for Waldemar Dziki
• Lubusz Film Summer Łagów 1984: Grand Prix Golden Grape for Wit Dąbal
About the film
Waldemar Dziki adapted the Czech novel, which was a great success in Europe and had been filmed in Czechoslovakia. It is a Kafkaesque treatise on human dignity in the face of imminent death, and at the same time a symbol of the extermination of the Jewish people.
Jakub Rosenberg, a Polish Jew, is waiting in the ghetto to be summoned to the place where transports leave from. This is tantamount to a death sentence. Everyone around him is paralysed and half-dead with fear.
Jakub decides to prepare for death, to face the finality with dignity – panic degrades a man. He teaches the same to a little boy left in his care. He develops a technique to master fear. Finally, there comes a moment when both must bear the burden of their destiny.
Donata Zielińska, Leksykon polskich filmów fabularnych, Warszawa 1996
