In 1987, colour slides were found in a second hand book store in Vienna which turned out to be a collections of photographs taken in the Lodz ghetto by the Nazis' chief accountant. Walter Genewein boosted productivity in the ghetto while keeping costs down, a policy which led to the Lodz ghetto surviving much longer than any other in Poland. He recorded what he considered to be the subhuman aspect of the Jewish workers and he was concerned only with the technical quality of his photos.  Director Dariusz Jabłoński's prize-winning film uses the photographs in a different way. He recreates for us the suffering of inmates, giving a compassionate picture of that it was like to be trapped in the ghetto. (Storyville)

Photographer

A uniquely constructed portrait of the Polish Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski, who provided the CIA with more than 40,000 strategic documents from the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War. Was he a traitor, or the savior of Poland? The Polish documentary filmmaker Dariusz Jablonski begins his story of the colonel in 2004, when he was supposed to interview him for the very first time. It turns out that Kuklinski has just died, and at the request of the colonel's wheelchair-bound wife, Jablonski agrees to take care of his ashes. He talks with a considerable number of closely involved ex-servicemen -- from the U.S. head of espionage General William E. Odom to the Warsaw Pact Commander-in-Chief Viktor Kulikov, the Polish General Wojciech Jaruzelski, and former Polish President Lech Walesa.

War Games and the Man Who Stopped Them

This is not a love story though it is full of love. It is not a comedy though the characters often say funny things. It is not a detective story even though the hero is trying to solve a murder. It is not a nature drama though it shows the splendid colours and customs of the countryside. It is not a musical though Lubica expresses her longing in a passionate dance. Nor is it a film about ghosts though a ghost does ask the hero for a favour. A few draughts of Strawberry Wine are enough to take us into a magical world in the true centre of Europe, where love, crime and penitence are just as much a part of life as the changing of the seasons, the migration of birds or the flowing of a mountain stream.