ARTISTS ON STRIKE

The documentary produced by Filmlux (Milan) in collaboration with Wojtekfilms (Warsaw) and Aluei (Rome), written and directed by Elena de Varda, Music by Louis Siciliano will be presented in Gdansk in September, during the week of democracy.

Between 1975 and 1989 there develops in Poland the most important contemporary artistic movement of underground and independent culture in the world. Through marks, visions and individual stories of some artists involved, we create a peculiar fresco of this time that changed Europe since 1989, starting from Poland, solidarity and my personal story: an Italian girl from Milan, a “communist” girl 18 years old, who got a scholarship at the Academy of Fine arts in Krakow in 1987/88 and had to cope with the real Communism in Poland, it’s unexpected ending (nobody believed that the Soviet dictatorship was going to fall down) and met extraordinary artists who fought for freedom.
Elena visits Poland after 28 years and meets again some of these extraordinary artists in a world completely changed: Consumerism has replaced Communism and it is difficult to find traces of solidarity and a general mass – amnesia seems to dominate the contemporary Polish world.
For the first time we assisted a massive STRIKE OF ARTISTS: the painters refused to exhibit in official galleries, belonging to the State, actors declined to appear on television or perform in official films, people stopped looking at the official television channels and buying newspapers representing the power apparatus.
It was the beginning of a huge, hidden revolution. Culture became an integral part of this protest connecting people from all over the world.

Grate Polish and international artists: Jerzy Kalina, Jerzy Beres, the theater group “Of the Eighth Day (Osmego Dnia), the twin brother Janiccy (historical actors in the Kantor Theatre), Josef Robakowski, Krzysztof Skiba and the “Orange Alternative” and many others.