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24 March 2017: Innocent Sorcerers

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Innocent Sorcerers
Andrzej Wajda
1960 | 84 min | B/W | DCP

“At once breezy and grave, acutely dry yet strangely lyrical, Andrzej Wajda’s Innocent Sorcerers seems to grow richer with each passing year. And yet, at the time of its making the project seemed like a startling departure for the director, whose previous features dealt strictly with Polish wartime experience.” – Michał Oleszczyk

Following after his renowned War trilogy, Andrzej Wajda made this provocative film about contemporary youth from a script co-written by Jerzy Skolimowski. A commentary on the lives of young people who grew up in the new, post-war communist Poland, Wajda chronicles a bohemian milieu of scooters, love, sex and jazz with great vitality and humour. The rebellion the film depicts is social and moral, not political - and the film angered both Communist and Church authorities by showing its young characters’ explicit rejection of any ideological affinity. With an outstanding cast headed by Tadeusz Łomnicki, Polish superstar Zbigniew Cybulski, a young Roman Polanski and featuring an incredible jazz score by renowned composer Krzysztof Komeda, this is a key film of the period and in its director’s oeuvre - and one that has substantially grown in stature over time.


Screening as part of our season on Andrzej Wajda and the 15th KINOTEKA Polish Film Festival: kinoteka.org.uk