Katyn (2007)

An examination of the Soviet slaughter of thousands of Polish officers and citizens in the Katyn forest in 1940.

Director:

Andrzej Wajda

Writers:

Andrzej Mularczyk (story), Przemyslaw Nowakowski (screenplay)

Stars:

Andrzej Chyra, Maja Ostaszewska, Artur Zmijewski

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 14 wins & 12 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Andrzej Chyra	...	Lt. Jerzy
Maja Ostaszewska	...	Anna, Andrzej's wife
Artur Zmijewski	...	Cavalry Capt. Andrzej
Danuta Stenka	...	Róza Smorawinska, general's wife
Jan Englert	...	General Mieczyslaw Smorawinski
Magdalena Cielecka	...	Agnieszka Baszkowska, Lt. Pilot's sister
Agnieszka Glinska	...	Irena Baszkowska
Pawel Malaszynski	...	Lt. Pilot Piotr Baszkowski
Maja Komorowska	...	Andrzej's Mother
Wladyslaw Kowalski	...	Professor Jan
Antoni Pawlicki	...	Tadeusz
Agnieszka Kawiorska	...	Ewa Smorawinska
Sergey Garmash	...	Maj. Popov
Joachim Paul Assböck	...	Obersturmbannführer Bruno Müller (as Joachim Assböck)
Waldemar Barwinski	...	Polish Officer

Storyline

When the Soviet Union on 17 September 1939 invades Poland, Anna Aleksandrowna leaves her home in Krakow to search for her husband, the Polish captain Andrzej. She finds him together with other officers captured by the Red Army, but some minutes later he is pushed into a train, which will take all the Polish officers to a prison camp in Kozelsk in Russia. Anna and her daughter Nika is now stuck in the Soviet occupied zone, unable to go back to Krakow in the German zone, not until a brave Russian captain helps them to flee. 3 April 1940 Andrzej is transported from the prison camp in Kozelsk to the Katyn Forest, where thousands of Polish officers are killed. In 1943 the Germans capture this area and find the mass graves. 13 April 1943 they start announcing the names of the identified corpses through loudspeakers in Krakow. Anna is happy that Andrzej is not in any of the Katyn lists, which gives her some hope. 18 January 1945 the Red Army liberates Krakow from the Nazis. The Russians ...

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Plot Keywords:

1940s | red army | poland | russia | soviet union | 

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Taglines:

The untold story of the crime Stalin could not hide.

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Genres:

Drama | History | War

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Did You Know?

Trivia

Poland's Official Submission to the Best Foreign Language Film Category of the 80th Annual Academy Awards (2008).

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Goofs

Tur says to Ewa, "Haven't you seen that Disney's "The Sleeping Beauty", remember?" That movie was first released fourteen years after 1945, so this may be a mistranslation in the subtitles for "Snow White".

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Connections

Referenced in Pozner: Ezhi Artur Bar (2010)

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Soundtracks

Symphony No. 4, Part 1 - Adagio
Written by Krzysztof Penderecki
Performed by Polish State Philharmonic Orchestra

User Reviews

Excellent, brutal, touching -- the tragedy of a generation.

Wajda, whose father was one of the tens of thousands of victims of this mega war crime, has created a powerful film that should be viewed both within Poland and abroad.

To understand modern Poland, it is necessary to understand what happened to much of the country's pre-WWII intellectual makeup. Wajda constructs a film that lets film audiences comprehend if not the scale of the crime, at least its devastating effects on victims and their families.

The film is well edited. It takes a complex story and tells it in the amount of time that audiences can both sit and take in the details as well as tolerate the brutality of the event itself.

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

Poland

Language:

Polish Russian German Ukrainian

Release Date:

21 September 2007 (Poland)

Also Known As:

Das Massaker von Katyn

Filming Locations:

11 Listopada, Praga Pólnoc, Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland

Box Office

Budget:

EUR4,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$11,053, 22 February 2009

Gross USA:

$118,095

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$14,768,451

Company Credits

Production Co:

Akson Studio, TVP, Polski Instytut Sztuki Filmowej

Technical Specs

Runtime:

122 min 118 min 118 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital EX Dolby Digital DTS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1