Film Archive

Strike (Strajk - Die Heldin von Danzig)

Can a single person change the course of history? Hardly. Such legends are born at a later time. But a single person can be the catalyst for a powerful development.

Agnieszka is a small woman. She was an orphan, is the mother of an illegitimate child, Catholic, a Socialist Workers hero, a welder and a crane operator in the Lenin Shipyards in Gdansk. Life hasn’t been easy on her. Her husband dies shortly after their marriage, her son distances himself from her. She works hard and diligently, and expects the same sense of diligence from others, particularly from party members. Quick-witted and with humor, she is able to forge her way past the fat cats and masters, but eventually they get her and she is fired on a false pretense. Showing their solidarity, her colleagues strike in order to force her reinstatement. Suddenly the whole shipyard is striking, and then all Polish factories. Solidarnosc is born.

The actions of a single worker set the strikes in the Lenin Shipyards in Gdansk in motion, which brought about the independent labor union Solidarnosc, which lead to Perestroika and, finally, to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Volker Schloendorff was born in Wiesbaden in 1939. He made his debut as a film director in 1965 with Young Toerless which won the German Film Award and the Max Ophuels Award in 1966. A selection of his films includes: Baal (1970), The Sudden Wealth of the Poor People of Kombach (1971), The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1975, in co-direction with Margarethe von Trotta), Fangschuss (1976), Germany in Autumn (1976, together with Stefan Aust, Alexander Kluge, et al), Circle of Deceit (1981), Swann in Love (1983), Death of a Salesman (1985), A Gathering of Old Men (1987), The Handmaid's Tale (1990), Voyager (1990), The Ogre (1996), Palmetto (1998), The Legends of Rita (1999), Ein Produzent hat Seele oder er hat keine (documentary, 2001), Ten Minutes Older: The Cello (2002), The Ninth Day (2004), Strike (2006), and Ulzhan (2007). In 1979, his film The Tin Drum was the first film by a German director to be awarded a Golden Palm in Cannes. A year later, it was the first German film to be awarded an OSCAR for Best Foreign Language Film.
 

Genre Drama
Category Feature Film Cinema
Year of Production 2006
Director Volker Schloendorff
Screenplay Andreas Pflueger, Sylke René Meyer
Director of Photography Andreas Hoefer
Editors Peter Przygodda, Wanda Zeman
Music by Jean Michel Jarre
Production Design Robert Czesak
Producer Juergen Haase
Production Company Provobis Film/Berlin, in co-production with Mediopolis/Berlin, BR/Munich, ARTE/Strasbourg, PAISA Films/Warsaw
Principal Cast Katharina Thalbach, Dominique Horwitz, Andrzej Chyra, Andrzej Grabowski, Wojciech Solarz
Casting Ewa Brodzka
Length 104 min, 3,107 m
Format 35 mm, color, 1:1.85
Dubbed Versions German
Original Version Polish
Subtitled Versions English
Sound Technology Dolby SRD, Dolby 5.1
Festival Screenings Toronto 2006 (Masters), Seville 2006, Istanbul 2007 (In Competition), Seattle 2007
Awards Bavarian Film Awards 2006 (Best Actress Katharina Thalbach, Best Cinematography)
With backing from German Federal Film Board (FFA), BKM, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, FilmFernsehFonds Bayern
German Distributor Progress Film-Verleih/Berlin

World Sales
TELEPOOL GmbH
Irina Ignatiew
Sonnenstrasse 21
80331 Munich/Germany
phone +49-89-55 87 60
fax +49-89-55 87 62 29
email: cinepool@telepool.de
http://www.telepool.de

 
Trailer
click here