director Kazimierz Kutz
screenplay Kazimierz Kutz
director of photography Wiesław Zdort
music Wojciech Kilar
with Olgierd Łukaszewicz, Jan Englert, Jerzy Bińczycki, Jerzy Cnota, Wiesław Dymny, Antoni Zwyrtek, Izabella Kozłowska, Jerzy Łukaszewicz, Daniel Olbrychski
awards (selection) Grand Prix of the International Festival of Youth and Film in Grenoble, 1971
Gold medal of the town of Karwiny at the Festival of Polish Film in Czechoslovakia, 1970
Main prize, Golden Grape of the audience representatives, Golden Grape of the jury of professional screenwriters, Golden Grape for cinematography and art direction (Bolesław Kamykowski) at the Festival of Polish Feature Films at the Lubuskie Film Summer in Łagów, 1970
1st Class State Award for film for Kazimierz Kutz, 1970
MAŁGORZATA HENDRYKOWSKA, 1969 - KAZIMIERZ KUTZ DISCOVERS THE POWER OF HIS ‘LITTLE HOMELAND’, [IN:] HISTORY OF POLISH CINEMA; ED. BY T. LUBELSKI AND K. J. ZARĘBSKI [1969 – KAZIMIERZ KUTZ ODKRYWA SIŁĘ ‘MAŁEJ OJCZYZNY’, HISTORIA KINA POLSKIEGO], WARSZAWA 2006
The film was severely criticized at the Karlove Vary Festival at the instigation of the Soviet jury member. Showing Silesian workers defending their regional identity was regarded as ‘propagation of nationalism’ and the convention that Kutz selected to present their rebellion was described as ‘mockery of heroism.’
MARIA LIPOK–BIERWIACZONEK, ‘SALT OF THE BLACK EARTH’ [SÓL ZIEMI CZARNEJ], ‘KINO’, 1997, NO. 10
‘Salt of the Black Earth’ is like an insurrectionary song, a ballad about seven brothers who, with paternal consent and maternal blessing, ‘went to fight’. (…) The patriarch of the family, taciturn old Basista, embodies the great Pole – a staunch defender of his patrimony and his own system of values. (…) Equally important is the landscape – a juxtaposition of two worlds. There is Silesia – a land dark with fumes and slag heaps, a real world familiar to the characters. There is also Poland with its idyllic landscape of green fields and rolling hills. (…) There is the world of everyday toil, as well as the toil of freedom fighters, and there is the world of dreams just across the border river.
history periods
