Innocent Sorcerers, Ashes and Diamonds

One of Poland’s greatest filmmakers, Andrzej Wajda received an honorary Oscar in 2000 and was the subject of a Wexner Center retrospective in 2009. This double feature opens with Innocent Sorcerers, a love story and portrait of young Poles in the 1950s. The film follows a young couple who meet in a bar and continue their night of romance, which grows in significance as the evening unfolds. (87 mins., DCP) Called “arguably one of the greatest films ever made” by Martin Scorsese, Ashes and Diamonds is set on the last day of World War II and the first day of peace as a young Polish resistance soldier comes to realize his Nazi oppressors are being replaced by Soviet ones. The film’s star, Zbigniew Cybulski (nicknamed the “Polish James Dean”), became an international heartthrob. Notably, Scorsese modeled Harvey Keitel’s sunglasses in Mean Streets after the pair Cybulski wears in this film. (103 mins., DCP)

Organized by Propaganda Foundation, DI Factory, and Cyfrowe Repozytorium Filmowe, Warsaw, and The Film Foundation, New York and Los Angeles; in cooperation with Milestone Film and Video, New Jersey, and Studio Filmowe Tor, Zebra Studio Filmowe, and Studio Filmowe KADR, Warsaw; and with the support of The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland, Polish Film Institute, and National Audiovisual Institute, Warsaw.

Cosponsored by Ohio State’s Department of Slavic and Eastern European Languages and Cultures and its Polish Studies Initiative, the Polish American Club, and the Ohio State Polish Club.