All good things come to an end; so does the festival of Polish films in the Irish Film Institute. As the last impression of Polish works, several films of Krzysztof Zanussi were shown. I went to see Persona non grata (2005), after which there was an hour long meeting with the director.
The film itself was in my opinion rather average, it seems that casting many stars (Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, Nikita Mikhalkov, Daniel Olbrychski, Jerzy Stuhr, Andrzej Chyra) is not necessarily a recipe for success. The film is based on Zanussi's own experience, as he had contact with diplomacy in the past, and was even proposed the post of Polish ambassador in Moscow (he declined). Nevertheless, the interview after the movie was mostly devoted to previous works, and I have to admit it was nice to listen to him. Zanussi talked, among others, about his silent fight with communist regime. As opposed to other filmmakers who openly presented their views, he was rather showing them camouflaged, so that the censoring institution didn't see anything suspicious in his films.
Krzysztof Zanussi
Krzysztof Zanussi
After the film, attacked by autograph and photo hunters
