Death of Сaptain Pilecki: Special Screening at the Kazan Muslim Film Festival

A special screening of Death of Captain Piletsky by Ryszard Bugajski (Poland) will be held within the framework of the Kazan Muslim Film Festival. The film will be presented by Marek Probosz, an actor, director and professor of the UCLA School of Theatre, Film and Television (USA), a jury member of the 14^th edition of the festival, who received several awards for the role of Witold Piletsky.

The film is based on real events and tells about the tragic fate of Witold Pilecki, a member of the underground Union of Armed Struggle existed during German occupation of Poland. In 1940, he became a voluntary prisoner of Auschwitz in order to transmit information about the structure of the concentration camp to the Polish Resistance and Allied Forces via a secret radio transmitter.

Piletsky sent reports of daily deaths in the camp that reached 10,000 prisoners. However, neither Polish Resistance nor Allied Forces attempted to release the prisoners. Then, he escaped from the camp and continued his underground activities.

In 1947, after the end of World War II, Piletsky was arrested by a new government in Poland and executed in 1948. ‘Only after the removal of Communist regime, in 1990, his wife was able to get the access to the archives and find out what happened after his arrest. Post-war Polish government tried to erase the story of Pilecki. His remains are still not found...`, said Marek Probosz.

Answering a question of the audience, how difficult was the work on the role of Witold Pilecki, Marek Probosz admitted that the suggestion of Ryszard Bugaysky left him in shock and after studying historical materials about the exploits of Pilecki this shock was even deeper. The actor also admitted that the story of his family ‘prepared him for this role’ and told about the fate of his grandfather, the Polish writer Jerzy Probosz, who died in 1942 in Dachau concentration camp.

‘My grandfather, when he was captured, had managed to write on a piece of paper a message for his family. These words have become the motto of my life: from the bottom of my heart, I wish you to survive and fight for everything you believe in. Even if your body turns to dust, your soul will be alive’, highlighted Marek Probosz.

Photo report from the event could be found here