Week 6: Choices, Possibilities, and Concepts of Freedom
Section 2: Wednesday, Nov. 18, 5-8 pm

Generation 89 (2002) and Diaries.pl (2004), Poland, Dir: Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz
Presented by Alina Klin

Generation 89 (Pokolenie 89) is a documentary about a group of former student activists, members of an illegal student organization (NZS) in the eighties. The film depicts their political involvement and shows what happened to them after 1989, when the ideas they fought for seemingly had triumphed, and when these former NZS members were perfectly positioned to play major political roles in the new Poland.  The director observes that members of this group "believed that their great moment would come after 1989. They counted on having influence on politics, yet they were discouraged by it. When one looks at the degradation of the Polish political class of today, one cannot but regret that these young people from generation 89 were pushed away from it.”

Diaries.pl (Dziennik.pl) is a portrait of young Poles in the year Poland entered the European Union. In making the documentary, the director searched the Internet for the protagonists and convinced them to write blogs. In the film they talk about themselves, creating a mosaic-portrait of young Polish people under the age of thirty. Among them are famous characters like Endo, a young illustrator and a bloger, Slawomir Shuty, a writer and performer, Marcin spokesmen for the Green Party,  Sylwia - a feminist and Piotr, a farmer. (Sources: Tadeusz Sobolewski, Polska Szkola Dokumentu, Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz)

Dr. Alina Klin is a Senior Lecturer and the undergraduate advisor in Polish in the Department of Classical and Modern Languages, Literature, and Culture. She also coordinates the Polish language program. Her areas of interest include contemporary Polish culture, literature, and film. She is a native of Krakow, Poland, and holds a doctorate in Southern Slavic literatures from Jagiellonian University. Each May she takes a group of WSU students to Poland for a two-week study abroad program that she developed.