Izabela Olszewska

The life of the pope John-Paul II, from his youth as a writer, actor, and athlete in war-torn occupied Poland to his election as Pope at the age of 58.

A German woman on a ship returning to Europe notices a face of another woman which brings recollections from the past. She tells her husband that she had been an overseer in Auschwitz during the war, but she has actually saved a woman's life.

This heroic story follows the life of Karol Wojtyla, a Polish Roman catholic who ascends the throne of St. Peter as Pope John Paul II. As a young boy, Karol is a bright and talented student. Archbishop Sapieha recognizes the very special, moving qualities Karol possesses and encourages him to consider the priesthood. Although determined to study Polish literature, Karol turns to the church; he is ordained and studies in Italy, France, and Belgium. Torn by fear and repression in post-Stalin Eastern Europe, Karol becomes a poisonous thorn in the communists' side. His deer reverence and commitment return him to Poland as Pope John Paul II.

Pressured by his superiors to disgrace public intellectual Warczewski, a professor and respected writer whom they believe to be a "camouflaged Zionist," rough security-services colonel Rozek enlists his sexy but naive girlfriend, Kamila, to insinuate herself into the distinguished older man's life and report on his every move. Not particularly interested in serving communism but eager to please her domineering lover, Kamila accepts the mission, reporting under the code name "Little Rose." As quick scenes contrast Kamila's crude pleasures with Rozek and her more refined experiences with Warczewski, it becomes clear that the more time the unschooled young woman spends with the professor, the more she comes to have true feelings for him.

A theatrical attempt to reconstruct the last, lost play by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz. An amalgam of themes permeating the author's oeuvre.

Set at the turn of the century, the story concerns a Polish poet living in Cracow who has decided to marry a peasant girl. The wedding is attended by a heterogenous group of people from all strata of Polish society, who dance, get drunk and lament Poland's 100-year-long division under Russia, Prussia, and Austria. The bridegroom, a painter friend, and a journalist each in turn is confronted with spectres of Polish past.

A former partisan now 38 years old remembers his childhood in the war.