'Pan Tadeusz', A New Film by the Winner of This Year's Oscar for Lifetime Achievement, Shows in California.

Entertainment Editors/Film Writers

SANTA CRUZ, Calif.--(ENTERTAINMENT WIRE)--Feb. 17, 2000

On March 26, Polish film director Andrzej Wajda will receive an honorary Oscar for his work in bringing European cinema to the attention of the world.

Announcing the award, academy president Robert Rehme said that Wajda had &uot;shown both the loftiest heights and the darkest depths of the European soul ... inspiring all of us to re-examine the strength of our common humanity.&uot;

The 73-year-old Wajda has made 44 films, offering audiences around the world an artist's view of history, democracy and freedom. His latest, Pan Tadeusz, celebrates the bicentennial birthday of Polish national poet Adam Mickiewicz with a handsome adaptation of Mickiewicz's much-loved 1834 narrative poem of the same name. The $35 million film opened on October 22 to unprecedented popular acclaim, attracting 5.9 million viewers in its first 90 days.

As Napoleon consolidates his empire across Europe and Africa and turns his eye toward Tsarist Russia, young Master Tadeusz Soplica (Michal Zebrowski) returns to Lithuania where his uncle (Andrzej Seweryn) and the remainder of the Soplica family live among the exiled Polish gentry. Tadeusz arrives just as a land dispute involving Lithuanian Count Horeszko (Marek Kondrat), a neighbor, reaches a crisis.

Love finds Tadeusz in the comely shape of Zosia (Alicja Bachleda-Curus), the 14-year-old ward of Tadeusz's coquettish aunt Telemina (Grazyna Szapolowska) and -- inconveniently -- a member of Horeszko family. Bound up in the argument over the castle and Tadeusz's love for Zosia is the future of both Lithuania and Poland, as Napoleon's army heads toward Moscow and the tide of Polish history is about to turn once more.

Pan Tadeusz is a sunny, boisterous film, and handsomely crafted. Each shot is masterfully composed with all the care of a 19th-century landscape painting. The film is deeply romantic, and patriotic almost to the point of mysticism -- an epic celebration of Baltic nationalism.

Polish film distributor Vision reported that the $3.5 million film, which opened in Poland on October 22, attracted 5.9 million viewers in its first 90 days, with a box office of $18.7 million.

     Special Sneak Preview Screenings in California:

       20 Feb, 1 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.
     Museum of Contemporary Art, 700 Prospect, La Jolla

       27 Feb, 12:30 (noon)
     Oaks Theater, 1875 Solano Ave. Berkeley

       4, 5, 11, 12 March 10:00 a.m.
     Monica 4-plex, 1332 2nd. Street, Santa Monica

       25, 26 March 11:00 a.m.
     Crest Theater, Sacramento

Tickets can be purchased online at http://www.my1planet.com/pantadeusz/Tickets_Online/tickets_online.html or http://www.ticketweb.com/ Outside California contact FilmArt New York at 212/304-9409 For further information call Arthur Mrozowski at Media Galleries, Inc. at toll free 888/406-1777 or e-mail [e-mail].