Polish Cinema Classics: Ashes and Diamonds

The last day of the war, the last night of captivity. And the morning of the first day of peace, May 8, 1945. During these dozen hours, young AK soldier Maciek Chełmicki, who was ordered to kill a communist activist, will fight with himself. Formatted so far to heroically die for ideals, he will meet the first love of his life and face doubts for the first time. Will the oath of allegiance to a soldier — or to a woman? Will he continue to kill, even though he wants to live so much now?

The world is changing around him — the old is rapidly mixed with the new. At the banquet in honor of the victory, Soviet comrades sit in places of honor, although it is still possible to sing “Red poppies on Monte Cassino” in public; one of his AK comrades tries to make a career under the new government, and the son of a communist activist fights in an armed anti-communist underground. He himself begins to doubt the meaning of killing at the end of the war.

The film, which became a legend of the “Polish school”, created several great acting personalities: first of all Zbigniew Cybulski, who, thanks to the extremely modern character of Maćek — a romantic rebel — became a symbol of the generation of the 1950s, as well as Bogumil Kobiela, who started his career as a director of tragedy as Drewnowski's secretary Comic characters imbued with great history.

<em>Awards: 1959 — IFF, Venice — FIPRESCI Prize 1960 — IFF, Vancouver — Award of the Canadian Federation of Film Associations 1961 — West German Film Critics Award 1962 — D. O. Selznicka Silver Laurel Award 1962 — French Film Academy Award — Crystal Star — Ewa Krzyżewska1965 — Czechoslovak Criticism Award Filmmaking</em>