About 1500 hopefuls turned out yesterday at the Warsaw Rising Museum in Poland's capital, where casting began for a major feature film about the WWII insurgency against the Nazis.

The movie is the project of hotshot young director Jan Komasa, currently making waves with his debut feature The Suicide Room.

"It is not my aim to answer the question whether the Uprising made sense," the director said in an interview with the Gazeta Wyborcza daily.

"I would like to show the coming of age of a boy against the background of history," he said.

"I am going to try and show the emotions of the Uprising's battles, and the dreams of the young men fighting."

'The film will be an observation of the cataclysm – the destruction of the city. None of these young people presumed that the dream of freedom would come to pass.'

Komasa stressed that he had the backing of a number of the guardians of the rising's legacy, revealing that former combatants of Poland's underground army had given their blessing, likewise the Polish Film Institute and Professor Andrzej Kunert, a leading authority on the conflict.

Speaking to Polish Radio, the director expressed that his intimate approach to a small group of insurgents was what the veterans he interviewed wanted:

"They don't want the Uprising to be shown in a monumental fashion, they want to see how it really was, people who love, hate, and cannot stand each other, but yet are devoted to each other more than life itself."

The final casting session will be on April 12, also at the Warsaw Uprising Museum. The director is looking for actors between the age of 18-21 for the principal roles.

Komasa is due to start shooting the film this summer. (nh)