Stardust

^director Andrzej Kondratiuk
^screenplay Andrzej Kondratiuk
^{director of photography} Andrzej Kondratiuk
^music Andrzej Kondratiuk
^with Iga Cembrzyńska, Krzysztof Chamiec, Wojciech Alaborski, Janusz Gajos
^awards
 prize for Artistic Spectacle at ‘Prix Futura’ Festival of Radio and Televison in West Berlin, 1982
 Jury Special Prize at 9th Polish Film Festival in Gdańsk, 1984
 two Golden Screens (awarded by the Polish film magazine ‘Ekran’) for acting achievement for Iga Cembrzyńska and Krzysztof Chamiec, 1983

[DIALOGUE FROM THE FILM]

Neighbour: It doesn’t look good. Up the hill it’s so-so, but down here the potatoes are all going to die. Old man: They say it’s because of those sunspots. Neighbour: So they say. But I think the end of the world is near. In the prophecy, it’ll be a first serious warning for the world audience. A deluge and an earthquake. Old man: An earthquake yes, because they do those thermonuclear explosions. But I’ll tell you something, I don’t believe it’s sunspots. I think it’s because of dust pollution.

LIDIA KLIMCZAK, HOW TO ESCAPE FROM A CRISIS [JAK UCIEC OD KRYZYSU], ‘EKRAN’, 1982 NO. 19

The heroes of the film are people who, in the Poland of 1982, live differently. Hidden in the wilderness, relying on themselves, their own hands, they find the unchanging logic of life in solitude and toil. [Yet] the folk inventor from ‘Stardust’ does not seek relief in nature; on the contrary, he is always wanting to change it. So it is an escape not from civilization but from absurd orders, directives, restrictions sneaking in everywhere. The last scene is quite symbolic: the Ten Commandments are the panacea for everything.