Andrzej Munk at London's Riverside 3-17 January 2006

A recent interest in Andrzej Munk’s work started with the distribution company Second Run's DVD release of his film The Passenger late last year. Following on from that, the Polish Cultural Institute in association with the Riverside in London are paying their own tribute to the director who died from a car crash at the tragically early age of 39.


The Passenger plays next week (17th Jan) and, though fictionalised, is one of the most harrowing accounts of Auschwitz you will see, emulating even Alain Resnais's Night and Fog. However, Munk also saw humour in the tragedy of life and tonight's (10th Jan) double-bill at the Riverside starts with his Bad Luck from 1960, about a Polish everyman who always finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's followed by its Andrzej Kotkowski directed sequel Citizen Piszczyk, made 29 years later and starring Jerzy Stuhr.

The film critic and historian Phiip Kemp will introduce the screenings on 17th Jan that, along with The Passenger, include Munk shorts and The Last Pictures, Andrzej Brzozowski's documentary on the great director from 2001. Brzozowski was Munk's assistant on The Passenger and here he takes us through the film and how he completed it to what he believed were Munk's intentions, also adding phtographs and a voice-over narration.

More information on the Andrzej Munk season at the Riverside can be found on this page