alr

The Eighth Day of the Week
(Der achte Wochentag / Ósmy dzien tygodnia)

Introduction by Olaf Möller
Directed by Aleksander Ford.
With Sonja Ziemann, Zbigniew Cybulski, Barbara Polomska.
Poland/West Germany, 1958, DCP, black & white, 83 min.
German with English subtitles.
DCP source: CCC Filmkunst

Artur Brauner, a Polish-born Jew and Holocaust survivor who, on August 1st of this year, fêted his 100th birthday, was the most outrageous character in the small but competitive world of film producers active in postwar Germany and the FRG. What set him apart from the rest maybe more than anything else was his interest in international co-productions—preferably with film industries on the other side of the Iron Curtain. In this regard, Der achte Wochentag / Osmy dzien tygodnia was maybe the most important project of his life: the first official co-production between the People’s Republic of Poland and the Federal Republic of Germany. It ended in a political miasma: leading West German reviewers judged the film after its premiere at the Venice Film Festival “Ungerman in style and soul,” while in People’s Poland Osmy dzien tygodnia became the longest-shelved movie in the country’s four-decades-plus history. Seen today, this very urbane, disillusioned yet hopeful love story reveals itself as one of the most exciting and engaging films of the era—in both film cultures and both versions.

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      The Eighth Day of the Week (Der achte Wochentag) introduction by Haden Guest and Olaf Möller.

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