nwFilmCenter

Jan/Feb/Mar 2009

Wed, Jan 7, 2009 - Sat, Apr 4, 2009

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Welcome to our 26th annual celebration of music and film. There is something for everyone here, whether your passion is jazz, rock, reggae, bluegrass or nerdcore—or perhaps the myriad ways in which sound and image, music and culture, intersect to reflect human experience. We hope you find this mixture of new and old, familiar and strange, full of inspiration and discovery. Our special thanks go to WILLAMETTE WEEK and MUSIC MILLENNIUM for helping us make it all happen. Enjoy.

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Andrzej Wajda

In 2000, at age seventy-four, Andrzej Wajda was presented with an honorary Academy Award for his contribution to cinema; yet the man who has been called the most influential Polish filmmaker of all time, and the father of the Polish Film School, is little known here in the United States. The marrow of Wajda's life and art was forged by his experiences growing up in Poland during and after World War II. This dark period in his life has sustained fifty-eight years of cinematic inquiry, from his first three features ("THE WAR TRILOGY"), which examine Polish life under Nazi occupation and Soviet domination, to his most recent work, the Polish Oscar submission KATYN (2007), a deeply personal chronicle of the murder of thousands of Polish prisoners of war, including Wajda's own father. "The good Lord gave the director two eyes—one to look into the camera, the other to be alert to everything that is going on around him."—Andrzej Wajda.

Support for this program from the Polish Cultural Institute of New York City, the Polish National Film Archive and the Polish Film Institute. Special thanks to Polish Television and the Film Society of Lincoln Center. All photos are courtesy of Polish Television.

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New Films on Art

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Declarations of Independence

A decade most remembered for the advent of the blockbuster, the 1970s also spawned a rich legacy of smaller films that have remained influential for generations of filmmakers. In an era when the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal created enormous distrust of authority, independently minded producers, writers and directors focused inward, examining the personal and social forces at play. Casting off Hollywood's usual entertainment conventions in favor of gritty and contemplative meditations, these films remain as resonant today as they were three decades ago.

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