The Culture Ministry has decided to spend less on the restoration of a 1918 film which was to promote Poland during this country’s presidency of the EU.

It was also decided to scrap five of the ten showings of the German-Hungarian production that was the international screen debut of Polish actress Pola Negri.

The Ministry originally had intended to pay 2.5 million zloty (600,000 euro) for the picture’s restoration and its showing in ten European cities.

The film, entitled “Mania, A History of Workers in Cigarette Factory” has had financing cut to 1.5 million zloty (370,000 euro) and its digitally-restored version will only be shown in Kiev,  Minsk, Berlin, Paris and Tokyo.

The remainder of the money is to go towards financing of other projects. The National Film Archives possess probably the only copy of “Mania”, which for many years had been thought lost.

This copy is now being restored with the use of state-of-the-art remastering technology.

However, because of its questionable cultural worth, the idea to use the picture to promote Poland during EU presidency was protested among others by filmmakers such as Andrzej Wajda, Krystyna Zachwatowicz, Krzysztof Zanussi and Jacek Bromski, who earlier described the film as “shabby.” (ek/jb)

Source: PAP