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Andrzej Wajda is one of
the most well known Polish film directors of the 20th century. In
the 1950's, he was a leading director
in the "Polish film school," a group of highly talented
individuals whose films brought international recognition to the
Polish cinema. He became interested in the visual arts when working
as assistant to a restorer of old church paintings in Radom. He
studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, then film
directing at the Leon Schiller State
Theatre and Film School at Lódz. His first three
films, Pokolenie (1954; A Generation), Kanal
(1957; Canal), and Popiól i diament (1958; Ashes
and Diamonds), won prizes at international film festivals. They
constituted a trilogy that dealt in symbolic imagery with sweeping
social and political changes in Poland during the German occupation,
the Warsaw uprising of 1944, and the immediate postwar years. The
actor Zbigniew Cybulski became famous for his portrayal of the hero,
a boy growing into manhood whose idealism survives the humiliation
and defeat of the occupation and the deaths of friends and the girl
he loves.
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