Janusz Morgenstern

Director

November 16, 1922 (88 years)

† September 6, 2011

Mikulińce, obwód tarnopolski, Polska (obecnie Ukraina)

Biography

Janusz "Kuba" Morgenstern was a Polish film director and producer. Janusz Morgenstern was born in 1922 to a Jewish family in the town of Mikulińce, Poland (now Mykulyntsi, Ukraine), to Dawid Morgenstern and Estera (née Druks). He debuted as a director with the film Goodbye, Till Tomorrow (1960). His other films include Jowita (1967), We Have to Kill this Love (1972), W-Hour (1979), Lesser of Two Evils (2009). TV series directed by Morgenstern included: Stake Larger than Life (1967–1968), Colu…

Filmography

8.0

More Than Life At Stake

A series about the adventures of a Polish secret agent, Hans Kloss, who acts as a double agent in the Abwehr during Second World War in occupied Poland.

7.4

Ashes and Diamonds

A young academy soldier, Maciek Chelmicki, is ordered to shoot the secretary of the KW PPR. A coincidence causes him to kill someone else. Meeting face to face with his victim, he gets a shock. He faces the necessity of repeating the assassination. He meets Krystyna, a girl working as a barmaid in the restaurant of the "Monopol" hotel. His affection for her makes him even more aware of the senselessness of killing at the end of the war. Loyalty to the oath he took, and thus the obligation to obey the order, tips the scales.

7.7

Kanal

In the last few days of the Warsaw Uprising during World War II, a modest group of Resistance members remains. The band must take refuge in the sewers under the orders of leader Zadra, but it's only a matter of time before they will have to emerge. However, when they try, they are met only with intense hostility from the Nazis. Despite their attempts stay resolute through immense mental strain, it becomes increasingly apparent that they may be doomed.

8.0

Colombuses

Kolumbowie follows a group of Polish resistance fighters during WWII in the days leading up to the Warsaw Rising.

5.3

Lesser Evil

There is a writer who in the late 1970s managed to publish a poem in the monthly "Nowy Wyraz". It was enough to become a self-confessed writer whose name began to appear in the state media. The writer takes full advantage of his privileges - he flirts with power, sympathizes with the opposition, and collapses his studies at the same time. He is saved from going to the army by an exalted essayist whose sister is the head of the psychiatric hospital in Tworki. In a psychiatric institution, a writer meets a schizophrenic who writes a novel. After his suicide, the protagonist takes over the draft, which he publishes outside of censorship under his name, thanks to which he gains fame, fame and money. August '80 breaks out....

6.6

Goodbye, Till Tomorrow

Jacek is a handsome, charming young Pole who belongs to a drama company. One day, in the streets of Gdansk, he meets Marguerite, a beautiful, charming French girl. He falls for her but the young lady is whimsical...

6.5

The Yellow Scarf

The main character - a man who suffers from alcoholism - wants to change his tumultuous life. The day before Christmas Eve he receives a gift from his son - a yellow scarf. A gift is a kind of talisman he receives from loved ones, and every time he loses it. When after another banquet he falls into delirium, his ex-wife and secretary bring him to his mother. She helps him to sober up and arranges holiday celebration for two of them. She gives her son another yellow scarf, in belief that it will help him break the pernicious habit.

N/A

S.O.S.

No description available

8.3

The Real End of the Great War

Róża marries a promising young architect, Juliusz. Then World War II breaks out and within weeks Juliusz is deported to a concentration camp. Months, and then years go by, until Róża abandons any hope that her husband might return. She meets and falls in love with another man, and tries to put her life back together, but one day, unexpectedly, Juliusz does return - a shattered, mere ghost of his former self, physically crippled and tormented by memories of the camps. First out of duty, then out of pity, Róża starts to care for him, but her feelings slowly are transformed into a kind of revulsion

6.8

Jowita

Marek is a promising athlete having his share of affairs with women. One day at masquerade ball he meets a an enigmatic Jowita and becomes obsessed with her, even when he finds seemingly true love in Agnieszka.

3.9

Legend of the White Horse

A satire of Cold war politics, where Red bureaucrats meet U.S. corporate greed - and a witch and a dragon.

N/A

More Than Life At Stake Part One

The first of six episode compilations of the TV show released theatrically, featuring episodes 1 and 3. In 1941, Polish soldier Stanisław Kolicki escapes German captivity only to be mistaken for the dashing Abwehr lieutenant Hans Kloss and recruited by the Soviets as their secret agent J-23. Under deep cover behind enemy lines, he feeds crucial intelligence to the Red Army while outwitting suspicions and dueling wits with the formidable SS officer Hermann Brunner.

7.0

The Smaller Sky

A story of a dropout out of a succesful career and a loving family. He goes to a local railroad station, then checks into a hotel and refuses to leave despite visits by a psychiatrist and his own son. He watches people daily at the station. A tv reporter is trying to come up with a story which would help him to save his job. He likes to chase women and the dropout's wife is one of his targets. He gets interested in the story of her husband and tries to make a program about mysterious individual. Once the tv crew arrives to the scene, the subject tries to hide and ends up on the roof of the station, where he catches a glimpse of sunshine - the "smaller sky" - before stepping onto a glass roof and falling to his death.

5.8

To Kill This Love

A dramatization of problems faced by a young couple in 1970's Poland - job uncertainty, conflicts with parents, living together, unfaithfulness.

5.8

Lotna

Set in the beginning of Wold War II, when the Polish cavalry still fought with lances against German troops. LOTNA is about a white thoroughbred horse that passed through various hands in a military outfit.

9.0

Atlantic Story

The fate of a German found by the French peasants - a deserter from the Legion of Foreign Affairs fighting in Vietnam.

7.7

Opening Tomorrow

A budding playwright is thrilled to find out that his play will be performed at a prestigious theater, but a series of problems pile up, along with the general feeling that opening night will be disastrous.

6.5

Ambulance

In this haunting short fiction film, a group of Jewish children and their teacher are herded into an ambulance by Nazis; the vehicle, ordinarily representing comfort and safety, becomes the group’s death chamber. Morgenstern’s presentation of the incident serves as a metaphor for the horror of the Holocaust, and provides a powerful trigger for discussion of the disturbing issues raised by the film. The figure of the children's’ teacher specifically parallels Janusz Korcak (1879-1942), a famous Jewish educator who ran an orphanage in the Warsaw ghetto and died with his young charges at Treblinka.

8.0

Adam's Two Ribs

An engineer comes home from abroad to his waiting wife. After some time, his second wife, an Italian one, joins him. For a small town, such a triangle will turn out to be unacceptable, especially since the spouses live peacefully under one roof.

5.0

Then There Will Be Silence

Two Polish Army soldiers, both from different political backgrounds clash while fighting the Germans.