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President attends premiere of WWII scouting epic

PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge 04.03.2014 12:04
President Bronislaw Komorowski attended the premiere on Monday of a movie based on a classic account of Polish scouts who were drawn into the anti-German resistance in WWII Warsaw.

Kamil
Kamil Szeptycki (L), Tomasz Zietek (C) and Marcel Sabat (R) during Monday's premiere. Photo: PAP/Radek Pietruszka

Director Robert Glinski's Stones on the Barricade (Kamienie na Szaniec) is based on scout leader Aleksander Kaminski's 1943 book of the same title.

“I have the impression that this film is addressed – and probably rightly so – to the younger generation, which unlike mine, does not have any direct links with the scouting generation,” President Komorowski said after the screening at Warsaw's Grand Theatre.

“But I encourage [viewers] to go and see it,” he added.

Sex controversy

Although Glinski’s mother was herself a member of the so-called ‘Grey Ranks’ (Szare Szeregi) resistance scouting formation, controversy was already sparked prior to the film's release.

One of the chief criticisms is that the young heroes of the film are shown having sex.

A statement released by the Polish Scouting Foundation following a preliminary screening in February claimed that viewers who understand the wartime scouting ethos are sure to react with “distaste and indignation” to the film.

Kaminski's book, which remains obligatory reading for Polish scouts, was originally published by the Polish underground press, and the account was a thinly veiled description of actual people and events in occupied Warsaw.

Historical consultant Professor Grzegorz Nowik has had his name withdrawn from the film's credits, as has Kaminski's grandson, Dr Wojciech Feleszko.

Historians have argued that attitudes to sex became more open during the 1944 Warsaw Rising against the Nazi Germans, when young resistance fighters felt their lives could be taken at any moment.

However, Glinski's film is set prior to the rising, when customs of pre-marital restraint allegedly held sway among the young intelligentsia. (nh)

Source: PAP

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