Casting finalised for Polish Cold War spy Kuklinski movie

Dorocinski in character on the cover of January's Film magazine

The new movie, entitled Jack Strong – Kuklinski's CIA pseudonym - is being directed by seasoned film-maker Wojciech Pasikowski.

The script, written by Pasikowski himself, draws on material garnered from Cold War era files held by Poland's Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), as well as accounts provided by figures such as Kuklinski's CIA handler David Forden.

Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski first made contact with the US in 1972, having apparently become disillusioned with the Soviet system after the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the parallel clampdown in Poland.

In the decade leading up to his flight to America in 1981, he passed on some 35,000 pages of secret documents to the CIA.

Although he appeared to share the goals of Poland's anti-communist dissidents, many in Poland are still ambivalent about Kuklinski's defection and motives. President Walesa himself declined to pardon the colonel during his first term in office following the collapse of communism in Poland.

However, critics of Walesa have argued that this may have been partly due to the notion that Kuklinski's achievements threatened to steal some of the Solidarity leader's limelight as the hero of the struggle against communism.

Director Pasikowski polarised pundits with his 2012 film Aftermath (Poklosie), which explores Polish complicity in the Holocaust.

Shooting on Jack Strong is due to begin later this month. (nh/pg)