Man of Marble

It is a Citizen Kane-styled story where Wajda introduces us to a young woman in Krakow, Agnieszka, who is making her thesis film. She is looking behind the scenes at the life of a 1950s bricklayer, Birkut, who was briefly elevated to the status of a communist hero. She wants to know how his heroism was created and what became of him. She gets a hold of censored footage and interviews with the man's friends and ex-wife, and the filmmaker who made him a hero. A portrait of Birkut emerges as a man who believed in the socialist ideals, the workers revolution, and in building housing for all. However, the young filmmaker's hard-driving style and the content of her film unnerve her supervisor, who thinks it's getting too close to a political nerve. The film project is killed with the excuse she is over budget, but the young filmmaker pushes forward against all odds to finish her film. (official distributor synopsis)