“Why don’t you make a film about us? Call it: Man of Iron.” Wajda’s incendiary sequel to Man of Marble emerged after the director’s encounter with shipyard workers in Gdańsk, where a 1980 strike led to the establishment of Solidarity—Poland’s first independent trade union. Real-life organizers Lech Wałęsa and Anna Walentynowicz appear as themselves in a rough-and-ready cine-pamphlet shot in the immediate aftermath of (what seemed to be) a victorious direct action. The son of original protagonist Birkut takes center stage in a time-hopping narrative which, like its predecessor, blends fiction and documentary into a potion wholly its own. That the experiment was successful is testified by anecdotes of electrified viewers singing the national anthem after screenings. As a result, Wajda was pleased: “Was the film good or bad? What does it matter? There was no film like it.” Feeling (rightly) endangered, the government quickly ensured no other such work could emerge by imposing harsh martial law for the next two years.