On 17the May 2012, during the 37th Polish Film Festival, and a week before his habilitation colloquium, we were visited by Krzysztof Kornacki (PhD at the time) – an outstanding film expert from the University of Gdansk, the author of “Popiół i diament Andrzeja Wajdy” (“Ashes and Diamonds by Andrzej Wajda”), a book considered by the jury of “Fredro’s Pen” best book competition as the book of the year 2011.
Krzysztof Kornacki admitted to his fascination with the How It’s Made programs and it is in this spirit that he decided to read the masterpiece by Andrzej Wajda. The extremely dynamic lecture, delivered in a true acting style, was a master reconstruction of the film creation process, through which we could follow the steps of creating the film and look behind the film production scenes. Citing numerous anecdotes associated with the creators of the film, our guest also revealed some funny mistakes in the editing process and other errors which in no way diminish the value of the film which has been considered the most important work of Polish cinema.
The lecture, or rather the performance of Krzysztof Kornacki was enriched by numerous fragments of Wajda’s film. As for the title of the talk – “The transformation of a girls into a ploughman. How Ashes and Diamonds by Andrzej Wajda was created”- let it remain a little secret shared only by the participants of the event and those who have read the book by our guest speaker.