Jakimowski's warm, quirky drama follows the daily lives of Stefek, a precocious six-year-old boy, and his teenage sister Elka during one magical summer in their small provincial mining town.  A loner, young Stefek wanders the streets of his seemingly dull neighborhood in search of connection.  Sincehis father, a man he barely knew, left his mother for another woman, Stefek has been trying to figure out how to reconcile them and trick fate into bringing him back.  Sister Elka--preoccupied with her auto mechanic boyfriend Jerzy and jer job prospects at a big Italian firm--takes turns ignoring and helping him, assuring him she has tricks of her own.  Jakimowski's charming homage to his older sister as a knowing, unsentimental coming-of-age drama, and is this year's Polish submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

Filmography: Squint Your Eyes (02).

Following the Soviet Union's invasion of Poland in 1939, nearly 15,000 Polish army officers, police, gendarmes, and civilians were taken prisoner by the Red Army and executed at three different sites, the most famous of which was Katyn Forest.  In 1943, the Germans announced the discovery of the Katyn graves, but the Soviets denied the killings, fabricating evidence that implicated the Germans.  In Communist Poland, asserting the truth about Katyn resulted in persecution by the Secret Police.  Katyn does not tell the story of the massacre, but rather of the families that had to live with both the pain of the crime and the lies.  Weaving together several of the victims' stories, Katyn is the culmination of Wajda's lifelong wish to make a film on a most personal subject: his father was one of those murdered at Katyn.  This year's Polish submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

Selected Filmography: A Generation (54), Kanal (57), Ashes and Diamonds (58), Man of Marble (77), Maids of Wilko (79), Man of Iron (81), Danton (82), The Holy Week (95), The Revenge (02).