Man of Marble

ANDRZEJ WAJDA 100In commemoration of the centennial of Polish director Andrzej Wajda (1926-2016), Central and Eastern Europe’s most provocatively political post-war filmmaker, the DFT will present four of his most celebrated masterworks in new restorations. Screenings of Andrzej Wajda’s films in the USA in 2026 are part of the Wajda 100 Tour – North America Project, organized by DI Factory with the financial support of the Polish Film Institute.“Andrzej Wajda was one of the greatest filmmakers we’ve ever had. He left behind one of the most formidable bodies of work in the history of the art form. He was a true master.” –Martin ScorseseMAN OF MARBLEAn energized documentary filmmaker (Krystyna Janda) fights 1970s government censorship as she seeks the buried truth about bricklayer Matuesz Birkut (Jerzy Radziwiłowicz), a state-manufactured “people’s hero” during the Soviet-controlled 1950s. Fourteen years in the making, Wajda’s great Man of Marble is a film-within-a-film that blends documentary and fictional techniques in a manner that inevitably invites comparison to Citizen Kane. Like Orson Welles’ masterpiece, Man of Marble is a reflection on national history and mythology, as well as stinging commentary on the very nature of filmmaking. Wajda’s 1977 Cannes prizewinner also turned out to prophesize the worker strikes of 1980 and the rise of the Solidarity movement. In Polish with English subtitles. “The Polish Citizen Kane. A dynamic, brilliantly structured, continually engrossing work with the immediacy of a battlefield dispatch.” – J. Hoberman, The Village Voice