16mm Film Screening: Adrzej Wajda's 'Ashes and Diamonds'

On the first day of peace in a small Polish town, Maciek is ordered by a nationalist underground unit to assassinate the newly arrived Communist District Secretary. The assassin and his intended victim are both guests at the town's hotel where, in a microcosm of Polish society, political careerists and upstart power-brokers attend a celebratory banquet.  Maciek becomes disillusioned and questions the righteousness of Pole killing Pole, but his superior forces him to complete his assignment. Wajda's film reflects the restlessness of postwar Polish youth in the fifties.