SFFS Screen Presents: Katyn June 19, 2009

Katyn (Poland 2007), Andrzej Wajda’s personalized exploration of the devastating 1940 liquidation of 15,000 Polish military officers, will open on SFFS Screen at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas Friday, June 19, 2009.

Acclaimed Polish director and winner of a lifetime achievement Academy Award, Andrzej Wajda (Ashes and Diamonds, Man of Marble, Danton) has created an epic and personal tale about one of WWII's notorious cover-ups. In the village of Katyn in May 1940, the Soviet army brutally murdered 15,000 Polish POWs, to crush Polish hopes for future independence. For 50 years afterward, the USSR denied responsibility, cynically blaming the Nazis. Wajda, whose father was one of those killed, focuses less on the crimes of war than on the people left in its wake. Their interwoven stories draw us into a world where the struggle for memory and truth takes place amid a chilling conspiracy of silence. The Soviet Union finally admitted to the crime in 1990. Katyn became a cause célèbre and a national event in Poland when it was released there in 2007. In his New York Times review, A.O. Scott called Wajda a “tireless, clear-sighted chronicler” and the film a “powerful corrective to decades of distortion and forgetting.” —Deborah Kaufman, Mill Valley Film Festival

Written by Andrzej Mularczyk, Przemyslaw Nowakowski, Wladyslaw Pasikowski, Andrzej Wajda. Photographed by Pawel Edelman. With Artur Zmijewski, Maja Ostaszewska, Andrzej Chyra. In Polish with English subtitles. 118 min. Distributed by Koch Lorber.

At the Sundance Kabuki all seats are reserved and an amenities fee is in effect for most shows. Tickets are available through the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas box office, at kiosks in the lobby and online at sundancecinemas.com/kabuki with print-at-home capability. San Francisco Film Society members receive discounted admission only to SFFS Screen programs and only at the box office, not online or at the lobby kiosks.

Coming soon to SFFS Screen -

June 5: Fados Carlos Saura’s tribute to the art of fado, a style of mournful singing which originated in Portugal in the 1820s, as well as a performance archive featuring legendary singers including Mariza, Carlos do Carmo and Cemané alongside newer artists Lila Downs and Chico Buarque.
June 12: Munyurangabo Lee Isaac Chung makes his feature debut with an audacious film about a quest for justice in Rwanda.
June 26: Three Monkeys A man’s agreement to take the fall for his employer’s crime drives his family apart in this sensual, quietly heartbreaking film from Turkish master Nuri Bilge Ceylan.
July 3: Eldorado Two aimless loners unite for a journey to mend lost relationships in this award-winning Belgian film.
July 10: Julia Tilda Swinton turns in a scorching performance as a desperate alcoholic woman who turns to kidnapping a child in the hopes of getting some money.
July 17: The Window A bedridden, 80-year-old man takes one last stroll through the beautiful Patagonian landscape in this elegant, lyrical and humanistic film.
July 24: Lake Tahoe With droll observational humor reminiscent of Jim Jarmusch, Mexican writer/director Fernando Eimbcke’s second feature follows a teenager as he struggles to fix the family car in the aftermath of a minor accident and amid deeper emotional undercurrents.
July 31: Lion’s Den A young pregnant woman tries to survive in prison in this Argentinean story of redemption.

For full, complete and up-to-date information on all SFFS Screen programming, including ticket purchasing, visit sffs.org. Information and tickets are also available at sundancecinemas.com.

Official Website: http://www.sffs.org