Passenger (1963 film)

Passenger (Polish: Pasażerka) is a 1963 Polish feature film directed by Andrzej Munk. When Munk died in a car crash during production, the unfinished film was assembled for release by directors Witold Lesiewicz and Andrzej Brzozowski.[1]

Passenger
Directed byAndrzej Munk
Witold Lesiewicz
Written byAndrzej Munk
Zofia Posmysz-Piasecka
StarringAleksandra Śląska
CinematographyKrzysztof Winiewicz
Edited byZofia Dwornik
Release date
1963
Running time
62 minutes
CountryPoland
LanguagePolish

Passenger, using the form of a documentary, relates the experiences of one female SS officer (played by Aleksandra Śląska) serving at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II, as well as her relationship with a Polish political inmate, Marta (played by Anna Ciepielewska), whose life she manages to save on occasion.

Production history

Munk died in a car accident while the film was in production and the completed scenes were combined from parts of original footage and screenplay sketches by Witold Lesiewicz. The methods used are explained in a voiceover during the course of the film, so its unfinished state itself takes a documentary form. Parts of the film were shot at Auschwitz. The source was a radio drama Passenger from Cabin Number 45, written by Zofia Posmysz-Piasecka in 1959. Posmysz's play was later reworked into a novel. It was published in 1962 as Pasażerka.[2]

Cast

Awards

The film Passenger was entered into the 1964 Cannes Film Festival where it won a FIPRESCI Award.[4] The film was also selected as the Polish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 37th Academy Awards.[5]

See also

References
  1. "Passenger: A film by Andrzej Munk". SecondRunDVD.com. Retrieved 2011-11-06.
  2. The novel was translated into Hungarian (1963), Czech (1964), Russian (1964), Bulgarian (1965), Slovak (1965), Latvian (1966), Lithuanian (1966), Moldovan (1966), Romanian (1967), German (1969), Japanese (1971), Ukrainian (1972) and Kazakh (1986)
  3. Kaczyński, Andrzej (25 May 2010), "The Passenger by Zofia Posmysz" ["Pasażerka" Zofii Posmysz], Culture.pl (in Polish), Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Artykuł.
  4. "Festival de Cannes: Passenger". Festival-Cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-02-28.
  5. Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
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