APF: The last stage | Majdanek — the cemetery of Europe

Another meeting of the Polish Film Academy at the Student Cinema “Blue Blanket” in Toruń, realized in cooperation with the National Film Archive — Audiovisual Institute.

In the program:

The Last Stage — directed by Wanda Jakubowska

Majdanek — the graveyard of Europe” — directed by Alexander Ford.

After the screening of the films, the lecture will be given by: dr hab. Daria Mazur, prof. UKW

The meeting takes place as part of the first semester of the APF Plot “In Search of Identity. Polish Cinema until 1956”, dedicated to the development of cinema on Polish soil in the first half century of its existence — from pioneering productions to the first works of the Polish Film School.

The Polish Film Academy is a nationwide educational program of the National Film Archive — Audiovisual Institute, which disseminates knowledge about the history of Polish cinematography. Each meeting combines a film lecture with a film screening, allowing us to look at indigenous cinema through its creators, genres, themes and historical contexts.

In the academic year 2026/2027, Toruń for the first time joins the group of cities where the program of the Polish Film Academy is implemented.

The Last Stage (1947)

Directed by Wanda Jakubowska

“The Last Stage” is one of the earliest feature films dealing with the theme of the Holocaust and the experience of the concentration camps. Wanda Jakubowska, herself a former Auschwitz-Birkenau prisoner, co-wrote the script with Gerda Schneider, also a former prisoner. The film was shot partly on the site of the former Auschwitz-Birkenau camp.

The story focuses on the fate of women of different nationalities trapped in the camp. Through their experiences, the film presents the daily life of female prisoners, the violence of the camp system, attempts to help each other and the activities of the resistance movement. Jakubowska used in the script both her own experiences and the stories she learned during her imprisonment.

“The Last Stage” premiered in 1948 and quickly gained international notoriety. It became an important reference point for later film stories about the Holocaust and the camp experience. The film is 104 minutes long.

Majdanek — Cemetery of Europe (1944)

Directed by Alexander Ford

“Majdanek — Cemetery of Europe” is a documentary made immediately after the liberation of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp on Majdanek in July 1944. Alexander Ford's crew recorded the camp site and the accounts of the released prisoners, creating one of the earliest film testimonies revealing the scale of crimes committed by Nazi Germany. The film lasts about 24 minutes.

The film juxtaposes survivors' testimonies and images of the remains of the camp with materials about the perpetrators. Here the camera becomes a tool of documentation — it records reality almost immediately after the end of the camp's functioning and preserves the testimony of the place and the experiences of its prisoners.

Today, Ford's film is of particular importance as a historical document, but also as an example of how cinema tried to face the experience of the Holocaust even during the Second World War.