GDYNIA, SEPTEMBER 18, 2007ALEX DELEON FOR www.filmfestivals.com"KATYN FEVER” IN POLAND AS THE WAJDA VERSION OPENS GDYNIA FESTAndrej Wajda’s new film “KATYN” concerning the mass murder of Polish Prisoners of War perpetrated by the Russians in 1940 and for years either hushed up or cynically blamed on the Germans, is more than just another film by a famous director. It has become a “cause celebre” and a national event stirring up the collective Polish memory of this incredible Rus...

Thessaloniki day 9 : A Clamorous Reception for “Honeydrippers” And a Stream of Walkouts on “Jesse James” -- November 25, 2007 PHOTO: Georges Corraface, festival president, and Despina Mouzaki, artistic director of the festival, looking on at Glover/Sayles joint press conference for ”Honeydripper” Day number nine was largely dominated by the Dynamic Duo, director John Sayles and actor Danny Glover. The day started with a Master Class by Glover (attended by Sayles) whic...

Day number nine was largely dominated by the Dynamic Duo, director John Sayles and actor Danny Glover. The day started with a Master Class by Glover (attended by Sayles) which was followed by a massive lunchtime press conference for the new Sayles film, "Honeydripper", and the main event of the evening in the Olympion Auditorium was a ceremony bestowing an Alexander statuette (lifetime achievement award) on Glover, folllowed by a screening of "Honeydripper" in which Glover is the leading actor, ...

NESCAFE is kind of a magic word in Poland where all during the gray Communist daze it meant "Real coffee from the West" at a time when anything from The West was labeled as "decadent" by the nauseating Red Regime. Since the "regime changes" of 1989 the Swiss Company has established itself bigtime in Poland with all kinds of other consumer items, not just coffee, and is now raising its corporate profile to new heights by sponsoring the Warsaw Film Festival, a festival that has been coming on lik...

The 32nd Gdynia Film Review ends on Up-beat Note as 92 Year Old Actress takes the Cake ! by Alex Deleon, PolandThe Annual Review of Polish Feature Films in Gdynia on the Baltic seashore is quite unusual in that it is both a compendium of the entire Polish feature film production for the preceding 12 months, and also a kind of local Oscar competition in which a professional jury votes on the best work of the year in the usual categories. This year there was a total of 22 films in competition, abo...