director Robert Gliński
screenplay (based on the diary of the same name by Ola Watowa) Dżamila Ankiewicz-Nowowiejska
director of photography Jarosław Szoda
music Jerzy Satanowski
with Ewa Skibińska, Krzysztof Globisz, Adam Siemion (child), Grażyna Barszczewska, Bogusław Linda
awards
Prize for Peace at Trieste Film Festival, 1994
Grand Prix, Golden Lions for Best Film, Best Cinematography, Best Sound (Urszula Ziarkiewicz, Michał Kuczyński) and Journalists Prize at the 17th Polish Film Festival, 1992
Tarnowska Film Award: Bronze Statue of Leliwita and Special Mention for Adam Siemion, 1994
ROBERT GLIŃSKI, FAITHFULNESS TO ONESELF; TALK WITH ZBIGNIEW BENEDYKTOWICZ, RYSZARD CIARKA AND JANUSZ GAZDA [WIERNOŚĆ SOBIE. ROZMOWA Z Z. BENEDYKTOWICZEM, R. CIARKĄ I J. GAZDĄ], ‘KWARTALNIK FILMOWY’, 1993, NO. 1
A film cannot relate any historical period in full. (…) But I’m interested in a certain point of junction between history and the fate of an individual man (…). This film is about a woman and a child, and it is not about a great historical issue. What is the use of a sense of history in the middle of the steppe? What really matters there are fundamental values and simple human feelings.
TADEUSZ SOBOLEWSKI, WHAT KAZAKHSTAN HAS TO SAY? [CO MÓWI KAZACHSTAN?], ‘KINO’, 1993, NO. 1
Gliński’s film restores to us Kazakhstan as a Polish topos of life in exile. It successfully conveys the literal sense of Mrs. Wat’s account: of completely unfounded hope springing up amid chaos and alienation. (…) Although the construction of the film contains some elements of a melodrama (ill omens, then forgiveness through love), the main emphasis is on the absurdity of human fate. (…) The film’s significance is embodied in its composition as a whole.
history periods
