Slideshow
EVERYTHING FOR SALE
Wszystko na sprzedaż
Poland, 1969
Directed by Andrzej Wajda
Starring Andrzej Łapicki, Beata Tyszkiewicz, Elżbieta Czyżewska, Daniel Olbrychski
Approx. 105 mins.
Wajda’s 8½ is a film-within-a-film about a director’s search for his leading man, who goes missing from the set. It was inspired by the tragic death of Zbigniew Cybulski, the beloved star of ASHES AND DIAMONDS who became an iconic cult figure in Polish cinema. Cybulski died trying to jump off a moving train, a stunt he performed in numerous films. Made in an improvisational, self-referential spirit, the film takes numerous Pirandellian twists, including the performance of Daniel Olbrychski, the actor who became a real-life successor to Cybulski playing the actor who replaces the missing star.
Presented with support from The Ashes and Diamonds Fund for Eastern European Film
Reviews
“Wajda has created a very personal, experimental work here, very Polish in mood and inventiveness. It is a haunting homage to the past, a story of elusive contours and shapes which have merely been outlined, now disappearing and dissolving into oblivion.”
– Albert Johnson, for the San Francisco International Film Festival