“The Power Was in the Conversations, So I Knew I Had to Help the Viewer to Hear Them”: Tomasz Wolski on his Doc Fortnight-Debuting 1970

Tomasz Wolski’s 1970 is a riveting work of ingenious artistry. (And one of the highlights of last November’s IDFA, where it screened in the Best of Fests section.) It was during that chaotic titular year that food prices skyrocketed, and Gdansk’s striking shipyard workers would spark nationwide protests across Poland, which would culminate in the triumphal Solidarity movement a decade later — but not before the Communist leaders at the time decided to quash the threatening uprising with lethal force, calling in army units, tanks, and militiamen with guns. None of which we actually see in 1970. Indeed, the veteran Polish documentarian has chosen instead to flip the historical playbook, focusing not on the righteous protestors but on their bureaucratic tormentors. 1970 takes as its basis rare audio recordings of the actual Communist crisis team tasked to figure out how to avoid a repeat of Prague. And these back and forth telephone calls — equal parts frantic and utterly ridiculous — are made visual not through any archival imagery but via realistically handcrafted, stop-motion-animated dolls. To learn all about the process of turning his country’s shadowy past into a high-stakes drama with humanoid models, Filmmaker reached out to Wolski the week of the film’s (North American) Doc Fortnight premiere. (1970 continues screening virtually through March 10, and IRL at MoMA on March 1.)

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.