Agnieszka Wagner Movies
Amoral men who traffic in human beings pick the wrong girl to exploit when they discover her best friend is an fighting machine bent on revenge in this thriller. Billy Ray Lancing (Steven Seagal) is a former American intelligence agent who has retired to seek peace of mind by living alone with nature. Lancing, however, has developed a close relationship through the mail with Irena (Ida Nowakowska), an orphaned teenager living in Poland; they correspond frequently, and Lancing uses his letters to help teach her how to read code. When Irena's letters stop arriving, and Lancing receives a terse message saying she won't be contacting him again, he becomes suspicious and travels to Poland. There, Lancing makes the shocking discovery that the charitable organization for orphaned children Lancing had been helping to support is actually a front for a worldwide network of sexual slavery. Working with Polish law enforcement, Lancing sets out to find Irena and her fellow orphans before it's too late, using his years of experience to ferret out the men responsible and his talent for codes to stay in touch with Irena. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steven Seagal
One of the most expensive Polish films ever made, Jerzy Kawalerowicz directs the ancient Roman filmmaking staple Quo Vadis. This remake follows in the style of the MGM Hollywood epic directed by Mervyn Le Roy in 1951. Set in 64 A.D., the story begins with officer Marcus Vinicius (Pawel Delag) returning to Rome to relax with his uncle Petronius (Boguslaw Linda), who works for Emperor Nero (Michal Bajor). Vinicius becomes interested in Jesus when he goes to a Christian gathering in order to see his sweetheart Lygia (Magdalena Mielcarz). Emperor Nero is opposed to the Christians, which leads the way to a firey, explosive, and violent conclusion. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pawel Delag, Magdalena Mielcarz, (more)
The Last Blues concerns a man leading a double life. Andris is ahappily married man with a young son he loves. He is well-off thanks to his career. However, six months of the year he tells his family he must be away on business and uses that time to stay in Poland living a bohemian lifestyle with a girlfriend named Bea. Andris' double life becomes more difficult after his two worlds unexpectedly collide. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
The horrors of the Jewish Holocaust are revisited in this drama by Czech director Matej Minac. The film opens with the upwardly mobile Silberstein clan led by Jakub (Josef Abrham), as he buys a villa in the countryside just before Hitler overruns the country. His blind faith in family unity ironically keeps a number of his relatives in the country to be victimized by the Nazis. Meanwhile, British humanitarian Nicholas Winton (Rupert Graves) tries to rescue hundreds of Czech children and get them out of the country. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Josef Abrhám, Jiri Bartoska, (more)
- 1997
This Macedonian-Polish co-production is set in 1950 Albania. The love affair of Albanian Elena (Agnieszka Wagner) and Macedonian Konstantin (Nikola Ristanovski) is interrupted by events during Albania's communist period. When Konstantin attempts to see her by illegally crossing a lake, corrupt Albanians label him a spy, sentencing him to prison and hard labor. Eventually, when he's released, Elena and Konstantin marry, and he returns to his old land-surveying job. However, when he requests a visit to his hometown, new conflicts arise. Shown at 1997 film festivals (Montreal, Toronto, Thessaloniki). ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Agnieszka Wagner, Nikola Ristanovski, (more)
- 1997
Based on the sprawling novel by Vicki Baum, this convoluted melodrama follows nine people whose lives converge during the days leading up to the tragic August 14, 1937 "Bloody Sunday" bombing in which a major downtown Shanghai hotel was demolished by the Japanese, an event that launched the Sino-Japanese War. The guests include Helen Russell, an enigmatic Russian noblewoman, her alcoholic British spouse Bobbie and Sir Kingsdale Smith, a royal emissary. Other guests are Hutchinson, a wheelchair-bound travel writer and the gossipy Mme. Tissaud. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Agnieszka Wagner, Annie Girardot, (more)
Italian chemist turned author Primo Levi was interred at Auschwitz during WW II until 1945. Following his release, he returned to his native Turin and penned the wrenching autobiographical account of life in the concentration camp If This Is a Man. In 1962, he wrote a companion book, The Truce, a chronicle of his hellish nine-month journey from the camp to Turin. Both books are crucial entries in the history of the Holocaust. This careful adaptation of the second book took filmmaker Francesco Rosi 10 years to make. Levi's trek begins when shortly after the Germans leave, four Russian horsemen ride up and tear down the gates of Auschwitz. Levi is quickly aboard one of the first outbound trucks. Over the next few months, he goes to many different countries, and along the way he meets and is befriended by assorted fellow travelers. Through them, his appreciation of life and freedom slowly returns, but with it also comes a deep rage and an abiding guilt at having survived, a guilt that may have led Levi to suicide in 1987. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Turturro, Massimo Ghini, (more)
- 1996
Director Andrzej Zulawski's adaptation of Manuela Gretkowska's controversial screenplay reaches new extremes in the depiction of brutality, explicit sex, and passion as it tells the story of an anthropology professor Michal's (Boguslaw Linda) growing obsession with a mummified shaman; spirituality; and the enigmatic, sexually voracious, violently disturbed beauty known only as "The Italian" (Iwona Petry). Along with very explicit erotic scenes, the film contains Zulawski's usual deliberate assaults on conventional morality, Catholicism, and Polish censorship -- any of which may offend certain viewers. ~ Yuri German, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Boguslaw Linda, Iwona Petry, (more)
