Andrzej Wajda’s Katyń will be shown during the International Film Festival in Venice in September, despite poor distribution of the movie in the rest of Italy.

The Italian minister of culture Sandro Bondi has said that the decision to include the movie by Oscar winning director Andrzej Wajda was made by the festival management in response to a special appeal made a day earlier.

According to the Italian ANSA Agency, Mr Bondi lobbied for the screening of Katyn having learnt ‘with astonishment’ that the feature is shown in only seven of the country’s 4,000 cinemas. He described the film as, “painfully beautiful and something more than a historical document”. 

“I trust that the film’s screening in Venice will be a gesture of appreciation of Wajda’s commitment to proclaim the truth, which has often been hidden by historians and politicians,” the Italian culture minister said.

In an interview for the Sunday edition of Il Giornale, the film’s distributor Mario Mazzarotto of Movimento Film said that Katyn, which focuses on the massacre of over 22,000 Polish officers by the Soviets in 1940, is ‘uncomfortable’ for the Italian left wing which has a dominant voice on the country’s cultural sphere. He cited examples of cinemas whose owners cancelled the film’s release almost at the last minute. (mk)