Press reviewed by Michal Kubicki.

All the papers have extensive news, editorial and photo coverage of yesterday’s incident which involved the convoy with the Polish and Georgian presidents approaching the border with South Ossetia. President Kaczynski accuses Russia – reads the headline in the tabloid FAKT. Gun-fire shots over the presidents’ heads, The presidents under fire and President Kaczynski puts the Russians to a test in Georgia – these are the headlines in the RZECZPOSPOLITA, POLSKA and GAZETA WYBORCZA dailies. FAKT has views and comments from politicians and analysts under the headline: A Russian attack or a Georgian provocation? The opinions vary but what most commentators stress is that even though the circumstances of the incident remain unclear, it is a fact that the the governments of Italy, France and Germany have adopted a very soft stance on Russia. One of the analysts in FAKT describes the decision to resume EU-Russia talks as a capitulation of Brussels.
 
RZECZPOSPOLITA carries an extensive interview with Prime Minister Donald Tusk. On the flat tax, which was one of the key points of the election programme of his Civic Platform party, Mr. Tusk said that it cannot be introduced under the present conditions. ‘Poland cannot afford a further reduction of taxes in a foreseeable future’, he told the daily, also stressing that his government will not yield to trade union demands on early retirement. In his view, the lowering of the number of people eligible for early retirement to 260,000 from around one million is crucial from the point of view of the state finances. He accused the unions of ignoring the civilizational changes of the two two decades.

POLSKA welcomes Hollywood in Silesia. The daily reports on the location shooting in Katowice for a film by Poland’s Lech Majewski. Entitled The Mill and the Cross, it is a documentary fiction based on a book by the art historian, Michael Gibson, about Peter Bruegel’s painting The Way to Calvary. The film stars Rutger Hauer as Peter Bruegel, Michael York as his art collector friend and Charlotte Rampling as Mary, the mother of Jesus. Fifty five year-old Lech Majewski is a filmmaker, painter, poet, novelist, and  theater director. In 2006, he was the youngest filmmaker ever honoured with a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He told the daily POLSKA that he hopes to show his new film at the Louvre in Paris.