director Wanda Jakubowska
screenplay Wanda Jakubowska, Gerda Schneider
director of photography Borys Monastyrski
music Roman Palester
with Barbara Drapińska, Zofia Mrozowska, Alina Janowska, Aleksandra Śląska, Wanda Bartówna, Barbara Fijewska, Halina Drohocka, Antonina Górecka, Tatiana Górecka, Edward Dziewoński
awards
Grand Prix, Crystal Globe at Karlovy Vary Film Festival, 1948
1st Prize at Workers' Film Festival in Gottwaldov, 1948
World Peace Council Award, 1950
prize for direction at the Lubuskie Film Summer in Łagów, 1979
AN ADMIRABLE FILM – ‘THE LAST STAGE’ [FILM BUDZĄCY PODZIW – ‘OSTATNI ETAP’ W PARYŻU], ‘SŁOWO POLSKIE’, 29 NOV 1948
The French press gives the film full marks. According to ‘Les Lettres Françaises’ this is a most sincere film and one should take one’s hat off to Wanda Jakubowska. ‘It is a shocking masterpiece of film making,’ says Aube. The weekly Action concludes: This extraordinary Polish film shakes our conscience. It is a picture of our times never to be forgotten.’
JAN NEPOMUCEN MILLER, A NEW STAGE IN POLISH FILM [NOWY ETAP POLSKIEGO FILMU], ‘WARSZAWA. NIEZALEŻNY DWUTYGODNIK LITERACKI’, NO. 4, 1948
‘The Last Stage’ is no doubt the first Polish film of high artistic merit. The screenplay has an international appeal – set in the most horrible war reality that Poland has seen, it also refers to the fate of millions of Nazi victims all over Europe. Despite its macabre content, the film does not overwhelm with pathos or heroism. It displays the whole scale of human emotions, with quite a few comic elements and everyday trifles, so natural in a true human being.
history periods
