“Tadeusz Konwicki, a prominent Polish writer and filmmaker whose works during the communist era lampooned the authoritarian Soviet-imposed system, has died,” reports the AP. “He was 88. Konwicki is best known for his novels A Minor Apocalypse, a satire of life in a totalitarian state, and The Polish Complex, a polemic on a national historical condition tragically defined by military defeats and foreign occupation. Both were published in the 1970s by the country’s underground press, bypassing the state censors.”
“As a screenwriter, he is noted for adapting Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz’s novella Mother Joan of the Angels for Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s cult 1961 film, which deals with possession in a 17th century nunnery,” notes Radio Poland. “Among many other scripts, he also worked with Kawalerowicz on the epic adaptation of Boleslaw Prus’s novel Pharoah. Konwicki likewise achieved success as a director with such films as Jump (Salto), the 1965 movie that became a favorite of Martin Scorsese. He also directed his own adaptation of Nobel Prize-winner Czeslaw Milosz’s novel The Issa Valley, returning to the Lithuanian countryside of his youth.”
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