Man of Vision: Andrzej Wajda Centenary Film Series
Man of Vision: Andrzej Wajda Centenary Film Series is a celebration of the acclaimed director through six of his greatest films. All screenings are free and open to the public.
Andrzej Wajda (March 6, 1926-October 9, 2016) was one of the defining figures of postwar European cinema and a central figure in the Polish Film School, the movement that transformed Polish cinema in the aftermath of World War II. Across more than six decades, Wajda made films that grappled with war, political upheaval, national identity, and the complicated relationship between history and memory. His cinema could be intimate or epic, politically daring or darkly comic, but it was always deeply engaged with the world around him. Throughout the Man of Vision series, we'll see this unfold across his landmark War Trilogy (A Generation, Kanal, and Ashes and Diamonds), the sweeping historical piece The Promised Land, and the daring political diptych Man of Marble and Man of Iron.
Location:
Humanities Quadrangle, Lower Level
320 York Street
New Haven, CT
A GENERATION (Andrzej Wajda, 1955, DCP, 87 mins)
7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026
In Nazi-occupied Warsaw, a reckless teen drifts from petty crime into the underground resistance, discovering purpose and first love amidst the brutality of war. Through restless camera movements and vivid location shooting, Wajda’s debut feature captures both the exhilaration and the terrible cost of political awakening, and introduces themes that would define his career: moral ambiguity, national identity, and the hard choices demanded by history. The opening salvo in one of cinema’s greatest trilogies. In Polish with English subtitles.
KANAL (Andrzej Wajda, 1957, DCP, 91 mins)
9 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026
As the Warsaw Uprising collapses around them, exhausted resistance fighters attempt a desperate escape through the city’s sewer system, its dripping tunnels dissolving into a disorienting labyrinth of fear and endurance. “Wajda cuts through any official mythology of military discipline and honorable defeat” (Michael Sragow), crafting a visually imaginative war film stripped of triumph but suffused with humanity. Kanal shared the Jury Prize at Cannes with The Seventh Seal and established Wajda as one of postwar Europe’s essential filmmakers. In Polish with English subtitles.
ASHES AND DIAMONDS (Andrzej Wajda, 1958, DCP, 103 mins)
2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 20, 2026
With an incendiary performance that made him an international star, Zbigniew Cybulski plays a charismatic young resistance fighter ordered to carry out one final mission on the last day of World War II. As he stalks his target, he’s torn between loyalty to the cause and a longing for a life beyond war. Wajda fills this incandescent masterpiece with clinking glasses, blazing fireworks, bombed-out churches, and haunted faces, capturing a country unsure about its future, caught between hard-fought liberation and immeasurable loss. In Polish with English subtitles.
THE PROMISED LAND (Andrzej Wajda, 1975, DCP, 179 mins)
7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026
“An expressionist comic opera of toxic capitalism and bad faith” (Peter Bradshaw). Three ambitious friends join forces to build a factory in a booming nineteenth-century industrial city, chasing wealth in a world of ruthless competition. As fortunes rise and loyalties fray, commerce begins to feel like combat—and is sometimes just as bloody. Wajda’s scathing spectacle immerses us in the smoke, clamor, and moral compromises with intoxicating energy and sharp social vision. His first Oscar-nominated film is seductive, savage, and gloriously excessive. In Polish with English subtitles.
MAN OF MARBLE (Andrzej Wajda, 1977, DCP, 160 mins)
2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 15, 2026
Wajda enters the disco era, and his star is a sly and swaggering Krystyna Janda in her arresting big-screen debut. When an aspiring filmmaker sets out to make a thesis film about a once-celebrated socialist laborer, her pursuit of the truth builds into a riveting political detective story that asks how history is written and erased. With a synth-funk soundtrack and an audacious juxtaposition of ‘50s and ‘70s visual languages, Man of Marble “evokes the comic creation, and tragic desecration, of a national hero with savage brilliance” (Michael Blowen). In Polish with English subtitles.
MAN OF IRON (Andrzej Wajda, 1981, DCP, 156 mins)
7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 17, 2026
As labor unrest spreads through the shipyards, a TV journalist is assigned to dig up dirt on one of the movement’s emerging leaders. A sequel to Man of Marble (and the only sequel to ever win the Palme d’Or at Cannes), Man of Iron is a remarkable snapshot of a nation in transition, as well as a gripping political drama about the power of ordinary people to change the course of history. “Shot at the very epicentre of Solidarity's activities and featuring an appearance by Lech Walesa, this brave, imaginative film became part of the political process it observed” (Philip French). In Polish with English subtitles.
See the full Yale Film Archive screening schedule here.