Andrzej Wajda, who won an award at the Berlin Film Festival last week, has confirmed that he wants to make a film about the life and work of Solidarity legend Lech Walesa. (photo: solidarnosc.gov.pl)

Addressing a press conference in Warsaw after his triumphant return from the Berlin Festival, where his latest feature Sweet Rush received the Alfred Bauer Award for ‘charting new horizons in the cinema’, Andrzej Wajda reiterated his plans to make a film about the Solidarity legend Lech Walesa.

“There is no script yet, so I can’t give the details but Walesa’s wife, Danuta, who played a significant role in all key developments, will be an important character in the film”,said the Oscar winner, adding that someone has to stand up for our heroes at a time when they are “the object of mud-slinging.”

In last week’s interview for the film magazine Variety, Wajda said: “What worries and makes me angry today is the situation where the hero of Solidarity, Lech Walesa, who played such an important role in history, is being attacked by people who are nobodies in comparison with him. (…). I think that perhaps the way to tell this story is through Walesa’s wife; through a woman’s point of view, a woman who has so many children and so many duties, with a husband always busy, engaged in the trade union movement or in prison. This could give the film a human touch.” Wajda said he had already talked about his plans with the Walesas and their response was positive.

The script is to be written by Agnieszka Holland on the basis of a preliminariy version dating from the 1980s, which had not been made into a film at the time. She said it will take her about four months to complete the script.

In 1981 Wajda made the film Man of Iron, about the fictional character Maciej, described as “the man who started the Gdansk shipyard strike”, and clearly based on Lech Walesa. (mk/pg)