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Ashes and Diamonds

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Ashes and Diamonds

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1958 film by Andrzej Wajda

OverviewAI-generated

Ashes and Diamonds is a 1958 Polish drama and war film directed by Andrzej Wajda. The screenplay was written by Jerzy Andrzejewski and Wajda, with Roman Mann serving as producer and production designer. The cast includes Zbigniew Cybulski, Bogumił Kobiela, Stanisław Milski, and Barbara Krafftówna. Jerzy Wójcik handled the director of photography. The black-and-white movie was produced by Studio Filmowe Kadr and distributed by the same studio and Netflix.

The narrative is set in Poland and is based on the work Ashes and Diamonds. The film has a runtime of 103 minutes. It has received ratings of 7.412 from 279 votes on TMDb and 7.7 from 15,036 votes on IMDb. The film is available on HBO Max Amazon Channel and Criterion Channel. It is referenced by 165 other encyclopedia articles.

Synthesized by Vinony from 40 facts across 4 sources: Wikidata, TMDb, IMDb, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Film · TMDB

7.4

A young academy soldier, Maciek Chelmicki, is ordered to shoot the secretary of the KW PPR. A coincidence causes him to kill someone else. Meeting face to face with his victim, he gets a shock. He faces the necessity of repeating the assassination. He meets Krystyna, a girl working as a barmaid in the restaurant of the "Monopol" hotel. His affection for her makes him even more aware of the senselessness of killing at the end of the war. Loyalty to the oath he took, and thus the obligation to obey the order, tips the scales.

Released: 1958-10-03103 minDir: Andrzej WajdaDrama, War, Romance

Cast

  • Zbigniew Cybulski as Maciek Chełmicki
  • Ewa Krzyżewska as Krystyna Rozbicka
  • Wacław Zastrzeżynski as Szczuka
  • Adam Pawlikowski as Andrzej Kossecki
  • Bogumił Kobiela as Drewnowski
  • Jan Ciecierski as Porter

Themes

  • polish resistance
  • world war ii
  • soviet military
  • black and white
  • post war
  • post world war ii
  • post-war poland

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Ratings

IMDb

7.7/10

15,036 votes

Year
1958
Runtime
103 min
Genres
Drama, Romance, War

via IMDb

Key facts

Directed by
Andrzej Wajda
Screenplay by
Jerzy Andrzejewski , Andrzej Wajda
Based on
Ashes and Diamonds , 1948 novel, by Jerzy Andrzejewski
Starring
Zbigniew Cybulski Ewa Krzyżewska Wacław Zastrzeżyński
Cinematography
Jerzy Wójcik
Edited by
Halina Nawrocka
Music by
Filip Nowak
Production company
Zespół realizatorów filmowych „Kadr”
Distributed by
Janus Films
Release date
3 October 1958 ( 1958-10-03 )
Running time
103 minutes
Country
Poland
Language
Polish

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Instance of
film
Country of origin
Poland
Original language
Polish
Main subject
World War II
Screenwriter
Andrzej Wajda
Producer
Roman Mann
Production company
Studio Filmowe Kadr
Cinematographer
Jerzy Wójcik
Narrative location
Poland
Duration
97
FilmAffinity ID
954754
Distribution format
video on demand
Show 8 more facts
publication date
1968-05-10
title
Popiół i diament
production designer
Roman Mann
distributed by
Netflix
Commons category
Ashes and Diamonds (film)
different from
Ashes and Diamonds
review score
96%
Sources (9)

via Wikidata · CC0

~24 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Ashes and Diamonds (Polish: Popiół i diament) is a 1958 Polish drama film directed by Andrzej Wajda, based on the 1948 novel by Polish writer Jerzy Andrzejewski. Starring Zbigniew Cybulski and Ewa Krzyżewska, it completed Wajda's war films trilogy, following A Generation (1954) and Kanal (1956). The action of Ashes and Diamonds takes place in 1945, shortly after World War II. The main protagonist of the film, former Home Army soldier Maciek Chełmicki, is acting in the anti-Communist underground. Maciek receives an order to kill Szczuka, the local secretary of the Polish Workers' Party. Over time, Chełmicki increasingly doubts if his task is worth doing.

Ashes and Diamonds, although based on the novel that directly supported the postwar Communist system in Poland, was subtly modified in comparison with the source material. Wajda sympathized with the soldiers of the Polish independence underground; thus, he devoted most of the attention to Chełmicki. During the three-month development of Ashes and Diamonds, the director made drastic changes to the baseline scenario, thanks to his assistant director Janusz Morgenstern, as well as Cybulski, who played the leading role. The film received permission from the authorities to be distributed only through Andrzejewski's intercession. The film did not receive permission to be screened at the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival. However, Ashes and Diamonds appeared at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI award.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Ashes and Diamonds” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

Gallery (6)