Cast

Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, Iwona Słoczyńska, Stanisław Manturzewski, Witold Starecki, Janusz Błaszczyk, Marek Cieślik, Tadeusz Głowiński, Piotr Mikucki, Andrzej Mularczyk, Jerzy Naukowicz, Lidia Rozum, Jan Sosiński, Jerzy Szulc, Mirosław Ulichowski, Krzysztof Wellman, Lech Wróblewski

Film description

Are ideals worth more than careers? Such is the question director Tomasz Lengren and scriptwriter Janusz Głowacki ask in a film about the dilemmas of a bestselling author who must decide whether to support striking workers opposing a dictatorship. In the early 1980s, during Poland’s martial law period, the film’s themes made it an obvious target for government censors – like many other films at the time, it remained shelved, labeled not for public screening. Finally premiering in 1990, The Christmas Tree of Fear remains a brilliant examination of a system that rewarded subservience and conformity, as well as a frank assessment of the paralysis that seemed to grip Polish intellectual elites at the dawn of the Solidarity opposition movement.

Prepared by: Rafał Pawłowski

Information about director

Tomasz Lengren

Tomasz Lengren was born in Lublin, in 1945. A director, screenwriter, scenographer, and actor, he is the son of famed illustrator Zbigniew Lengren. After graduating from the faculty of Interior Design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (1972) and the Directing Department at the National Film School in Łódź (1976), he has been a two-time winner of the Silver Hobby Horse at the Krakow Film Festival, for Brygada Majstra Mortala [The Foreman’s Crew] (1976) and Pomnik [The Monument] (1981). Lengren passed away in Warsaw, in 2008.

Selected filmography

1976 Brygada Majstra Mortala / Foreman Mortal’s Gang (doc.)

1981 Pomnik / The Monument (doc.)

1982 Choinka strachu / The Christmas Tree of Fear

1985 Tanie pieniądze / Cheap Money

2001 Dziad domniemany (doc.)

2005 Dusza słowiańska w bezdusznych czasach (doc.)

Prepared by: Rafał Pawłowski

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