director Stanisław Różewicz
screenplay Tadeusz Różewicz, Stanisław Różewicz
director of photography Stanisław Loth
music Lucjan Kaszycki
with Henryk Hryniewicz (child), Wojciech Siemion (Part 1: ‘On the Way’); Edward Mincer, Andrzej Banaszewski, Paweł Różewicz (child), Stanisław Milski, Józef Nalberczak, Tadeusz Schmidt (Part 2: ‘A Letter from the Camp’); Beata Barszczewska (child), Zofia Małynicz, Małgorzata Leśniewska, Zdzisław Mrożewski, Mariusz Dmochowski, Emil Karewicz (Part 3: ‘A Drop of Blood’)
awards (selection) Grand Prix, Golden Lion, at the International Film Festival for Children and Young People in Venice, 1961
Grand Prix of the Young People’s Jury and Honorary Recognition of the Film Critics Jury FIPRESCI Prize at the International Young People’s Film Festival in Cannes, 1962
1st Class Award of the Ministry of Culture and Art for Stanisław Różewicz and Stanisław Loth, 1962
WŁADYSŁAW BRONIEWSKI, POLISH SOLDIER [ŻOŁNIERZ POLSKI]
Alien troops thunder up and down the road
And above, the Polish autumn all in gold
A soldier sat down under a birchtree,
He bandages his sore feet
His group was crushed at the Rawa Height,
And he was up, and fought a bloody fight.
ZYGMUNT KAŁUŻYŃSKI, CHILD, SOLDIER AND WAR [DZIECKO, ŻOŁNIERZ I WOJNA], ‘POLITYKA’, 1961, NO. 41
The family ties of the film’s authors – Stanisław and Tadeusz Różewicz – may have a deeper significance: their works represent a similar moral climate (…). The films made by the Różewicz brothers follow a track of their own. For the majority of our films (of the Polish School) focused on taking the gilt off the wartime hero, on compromising the heroic myth (…) The problem of ‘Birth Certificate’ is not a settlement of accounts with the bygone past, crushing down its remaining myths, but an attempt at self-exoneration, curing ourselves, starting a new life (…). Owing to its first story, ‘Birth Certificate’ has won a lasting place in the history of our cinema.
history periods
