PHOTO: © NORBERT KUHRÖBER, MACIEJ LISIECKI
STRAJK. DIE HELDIN VON DANZIG - filmPOLSKA 2026
In the organizer's words:
This year’s Honorary Award at the 21st filmPOLSKA (Sept. 9–16) goes to director, screenwriter, and producer Volker Schlöndorff, who has made significant contributions to German-Polish relations through films such as*The Tin Drum*(1979),“The Fiend”(1996), and“Strajk: The Heroine of Gdańsk”(2006). To mark this tribute, *STRAJK* will be screened, and Volker Schlöndorff will be present at the screening.
STRAJK. THE HEROINE OF GDANSK
Dir.: Volker Schlöndorff, PL/D 2006, 104 min, Original with English subtitles
Agnieszka Kowalska, a single mother who cannot read or write, learns to read and write while working as a welder, eventually passing the required exam to become a crane operator at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk. This warm-hearted woman stands up for her coworkers and, if necessary, confronts the shipyard management herself—as she did in 1970, when protests broke out that were violently suppressed.
When strikes break out again at the shipyard ten years later, Agnieszka joins an opposition group led by electrician Lech Wałęsa. Their protest will mobilize millions of people nationwide and mark the beginning of the end of socialism and communism in Eastern Europe. Yet despite her enormous popularity and energy, Agnieszka does not place herself at the head of the movement, but leaves that role to the men.
With his fictional biopic, Schlöndorff did not create a historically accurate reconstruction of the events, but rather, with great empathy, shaped a main character with rough edges, based on the historical figure of crane operator Anna Walentynowicz. This met with resistance from Polish eyewitnesses, but he also received support from Andrzej Wajda, among others. [Rainer Mende]
Screenplay: Andreas Pflüger, Sylke Rene Meyer, Maciej Karpiński
Cinematography: Andreas Höfer
Screenplay: Peter Przygodda, Wanda Zeman
Music: Jean Michel Jarre
Cast: Katharina Thalbach, Andrzej Chyra, Dominique Horwitz, Andrzej Grabowski, Dariusz Kowalski, Ewa Telega, Wojciech Pszoniak, Wojciech Solarz, Krzysztof Kiersznowski, Jowita Budnik, and others
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