DIR. TOMASZ WOLSKI - 70MIN - 2021 - POLAND

In 1970, protests broke out in several coastal cities in Communist Poland, with workers going on strike to object to price increases and food shortages. Growing numbers of protesters walked out onto the streets, and as the situation became tense, a crisis team gathered in the capital.

Tomasz Wolski uses animation to bring to life archive telephone conversations of Communist bureaucrats in smoke filled rooms, desperately plotting ever harsher attempts to suppress the protests. Finally the army are sent in, and after eight days, with 41 dead and 1,164 wounded, the revolt is ended.

Told from the point of view of the oppressors, 1970 witnesses the fear, confusion, and brutality of the Communist apparatchiks, posing the uneasy question of the "banality of evil".