The Beads of One Rosary

^director Kazimierz Kutz
^screenplay (based on the short story ‘Tego domu już nie ma’ [This House Is No Longer Here] by Albin Siekierski) Kazimierz Kutz
^{director of photography} Wiesław Zdort
^music Wojciech Kilar
^with Marta Straszna, Augustyn Halotta, Ewa Wiśniewska, Franciszek Pieczka, Jan Bógdoł, Stanisław Zaczyk
^{awards (selection)}   Special Prize at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, 1980
 Silver Medal at Figueira da Foz International Film Festival, 1981
 2nd place in an Audience Survey at San Paulo International Film Festival, 1982
 Grand Prix, Golden Lions, at the 6th Polish Film Festival in Gdańsk, 1979
 two Silver Grapes, one for Marta Straszna and one for Augustyn Hallota at the Lubuskie Film Summer in Łagów, 1980

AUGUSTYN HALOTTA. THE IMPROVED LIFE OF AUGUSTYN HALOTTA; INTERVIEW BY HANNA KRALL [ŻYCIE POPRAWIONE AUGUSTYNA HALOTTY. ROZMOWA Z HANNĄ KRALL], ‘POLITYKA’, 1979, NO. 42

I agreed at once to play the main role because it was a film about me – an old miner who has his house taken away and is offered a flat in a block in return. (…) The hardest scene was the one where I was lying down, made up as a corpse. I wasn’t scared to play a dead body; I had seen a lot before. I was afraid I might die for real like that character Habryka. A lot of old people in our blocks of flats die, uprooted from their soil.

JÓZEFA HENNELOWA, EVERY DAY AND EVERY NOW AND THEN [NA CO DZIEŃ I OD ŚWIĘTA], ‘TYGODNIK POWSZECHNY’, 1980, NO. 50

This bitter but very true film, stylistically resembling the other films in Kutz’s trilogy, tells about a miner’s soul gradually dying in the superficial world of prosperity which uproots people from their cultural heritage. It also exposes the mechanism of betrayal and denial. Even the main hero surrenders in the end to the pitiful and ironically treated luxury of ‘modern life’. The film shows clear signs of manoeuvring between censors – it was made in the past era – but it carries a warning and is an upsetting testimony to the times.