Tadeusz Bradecki Movies
In this political satire from Poland, Jerzy Stuhr plays Filip, a factory worker who, after the birth of his first child, buys an 8mm movie camera to record his daughter's first few years on film. Before long, Filip is happily obsessed with his new hobby, and he graduates from simply capturing his daughter's activities to photographing practically everything around him. His movie mania attracts the attentions of his boss, who gives him a new task: making films that will give outsiders a clearer picture of how things work at their factory. However, Filip's ceaseless photography begins to drive his wife (Malgorzata Zabkowska) crazy, and she threatens to leave him, while his boss is not at all happy with Filip's films. They're quite good, earning television broadcast time and winning awards, but their messages don't conform with his party's political and economic agenda, and Filip is warned to soften the tone of his work or he'll lose his job. This dark comedy from director Krzysztof Kieslowski was released in the United States under the title Camera Buff. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jerzy Stuhr
The main character in this effective, convincing drama is Witold (Tadeusz Bradecki) who is high in what later would be termed the "emotional quotient" or the ability to bounce back from adverse, tragic circumstances. Witold has been nursing both his sick mother and a deeply rooted desire to climb the Himalayas. His father had died climbing in those mountains, and they have an allure for Witold as well. But his dreams begin to crumble when his mother succumbs to her illness and trouble brews at work. The situation becomes bad enough to scramble Witold's life with no indication of future improvement. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tadeusz Bradecki, Malgorzata Zajaczkowska, (more)
Designed by a shameless official as an anti-capitalist propaganda crusade, a three-day marathon race is sabotaged by a dissident who steals the running shoe of the hand-picked favorite. Budny and Stolar are two particular contestants who are highlighted here. Budny is a man with a hidden agenda; his father is held prisoner by the militia and Budny wishes to run the race in order to get close enough to the president -- who will present the awards to the winners -- to make a plea for his father's release. Conversely, Stolar is a self-serving loser who finagles his entry into the race and then turns his lecherous attention to a young woman working for the Party. A vicious indictment of Polish Communist Party officials of the Stalinist era, this symbolic film remained on the shelf for six years before being officially released to appear at the Sydney Film Festival in 1987. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tadeusz Bradecki, Jaroslaw Kopaczewski, (more)
The Polish Year of the Quiet Sun is set in the years following World War II. In a small Polish town, a United Nations war-crimes investigation is taking place. While the courtroom battle rages on, American soldier Scott Wilson takes advantage of a few precious r-and-r opportunities. He falls in love with Maja Komorowska, a war widow. Despite obvious political and ideological differences, the romance flourishes--at least until it's time for the Americans to pack up and leave. More cerebral than carnal, Year of the Quiet Sun was originally release in Poland as Rok Spokojnego Slonca. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maja Komorowska, Scott Wilson, (more)
The late, celebrated Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski) has created a downbeat but emotionally harrowing, magic realist tale in this film about a fictional couple whose lives are taken over by events in Poland in the turbulent, early 1980s. Antoni Zyro (Jerzy Radziwilowicz), a Polish attorney, dies in an automobile accident. For the next several weeks, his spirit watches what happens to his wife Ula (Grazyna Szapolowska) and his cause, and directs her course of action. Ula decides that her love for her dead husband can only be expressed by hiring an attorney to defend Antoni's clients - one of the most prominent is a hero of the Gdansk strikes, accused of creating the Polish solidarity movement and fighting for the cause of democratic labor. As the lawyer defends the worker who fights for his right to organize a union, Ula is still struggling with the loss of her husband -- and losing her battle to go on. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Grazyna Szapolowska, Maria Pakulnis, (more)
This Polish political melodrama examines the days leading up to the German invasion of Poland and centers upon two newlyweds. The husband is Uruguayan and comes from German-English parents. The woman is British. They have come to Poland to do some family business and end up visiting a good friend's country estate. There the woman is thrown from a horse and is critically wounded. Though her body heals, her mind is damaged. Her husband's cruelty toward her makes matters worse. The husband then learns that his factory is working with Germany as it plans a Polish invasion. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Julian Sands, Renée Soutendijk, (more)
Tomek (Arthur Zmijewski) is one of those rare people who follow their best instincts and get away with it. In this story, Tomek has made the acquaintance of Julia (Krystyna Janda), a very depressed, neurotic older woman. He invites her to stay with his devoutly Catholic mother (Maja Komorowska) and himself, and the two of them then try to deal with her hysteria and neediness. When it becomes clear that she needs treatment for her condition, Tomek goes to West Germany and, refusing the easy money his father (who is living there) offers him, takes a job in order to make enough money. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Krystyna Janda, Artur Zmijewski, (more)
Based on a true story, Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List stars Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler, a German businessman in Poland who sees an opportunity to make money from the Nazis' rise to power. He starts a company to make cookware and utensils, using flattery and bribes to win military contracts, and brings in accountant and financier Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) to help run the factory. By staffing his plant with Jews who've been herded into Krakow's ghetto by Nazi troops, Schindler has a dependable unpaid labor force. For Stern, a job in a war-related plant could mean survival for himself and the other Jews working for Schindler. However, in 1942, all of Krakow's Jews are assigned to the Plaszow Forced Labor Camp, overseen by Commandant Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes), an embittered alcoholic who occasionally shoots prisoners from his balcony. Schindler arranges to continue using Polish Jews in his plant, but, as he sees what is happening to his employees, he begins to develop a conscience. He realizes that his factory (now refitted to manufacture ammunition) is the only thing preventing his staff from being shipped to the death camps. Soon Schindler demands more workers and starts bribing Nazi leaders to keep Jews on his employee lists and out of the camps. By the time Germany falls to the allies, Schindler has lost his entire fortune -- and saved 1,100 people from likely death. Schindler's List was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and won seven, including Best Picture and a long-coveted Best Director for Spielberg, and it quickly gained praise as one of the finest American movies about the Holocaust. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, (more)
The title of this film -- taken from graffiti on a wall near director Krzysztof Zanussi's home -- provides ironic commentary on its subject, which revolves around a doctor's questioning of his beliefs when he is confronted with terminal illness. Tomasz (Zbigniew Zapasiewicz) is first seen working as the doctor on the set of a French movie production about the life of Saint Bernard. After his work is finished, he returns to Warsaw, where he makes the unpleasant discovery that he has cancer. Tomasz' only hope is an expensive operation in Paris, and he is forced to ask his ex-wife Anna (Krystyna Janda) -- now remarried to a self-important yuppie -- for money. Anna writes him a check, but when he goes to Paris for the operation, Tomasz is informed that his condition has become inoperable. Facing imminent death, he begins to question the beliefs he has held all his life and, with a sense of fatalistic liberation, starts to experiment with both his own life and those of others. A great success in Poland, Zycie Jako Smiertelna Choroba Przenoszona Droga Plciowa won the Best Picture award at the 2000 Moscow Film Festival. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, Krystyna Janda, (more)
- Starring:
- Nikita Mikhalkov














