1970

Tomasz Wolski – Director Introduction

The plot of the film pivots around telephone calls between politicians and members of the military that took place in the offices of the Ministry of the Interior. Phone calls were placed there from the Provincial Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party (the provincial body of the Communist government), which was besieged by protesters. The Ministry is also the office that ultimately gave permission to use firearms against the protesters and collected statistics on the wounded and the dead. In the background, one can hear demonstrators attacking the building with rocks, while an officer on the phone begs for help before everyone is burned alive inside.

These phone calls made by communist dignitaries have never been used in a documentary before. They show the backstage of important decisions and how crisis management was handled at the time. By building realistic models and dolls I decided to convey the atmosphere of the Ministry
of Internal Affairs, the atmosphere of that time. I also wanted the audience to be able to observe the people who had an impact on the events – to experience their fear and the horror of the situation. Stop-motion animation fulfilled this role. The characters were made reflecting the realistic details of the individual characters of the film in a scale of 1:6.