Release Date: 09/25/2007
Label/Distributor: MPI Home Entertainment
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Retail Price: $19.98
Genre: Art House & International Cast: Katharina Thalbach, Dominique Horwitz, Wojciech Solarz, Andrzej Grabowski, Ewa Telega
Director: Volker Schlöndorff
Running Time: 104
DVD Video Options: Color, Widescreen
DVD Audio Options: German, Original Language
UPC Code: 030306900193
In poverty, she found strength.
In oppression, she found courage.
In solidarity, she found a reason to believe again.
Acclaimed German actress Katharina Thalbach (THE TIN DRUM, SOPHIE'S CHOICE) stars in this hard-hitting historical drama set during the rise of Poland's Solidarity movement.
An illiterate single mother, Agnieszka Kowalska is a Socialist "heroine of labor" for working long hours as a shipyard welder… until her superiors deny compensation to the widows of 21 workers killed in an industrial disaster.
Risking her job, her life, and the love of her son to defy the bureacracy, Agnieszka inspires the largest labor strike in world history… and becomes a national hero.
Volker Schlöndorff adapted this "ballad based on historical events" from the biography of Anna Walentynowicz, the free trade activist who mobilized a million Poles for Solidarity and helped hasten the fall of Communism.
Filmed entirely on location at Poland's Lenin Shipyard, where history was made.
Strike
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By Ed Hulse -- Video Business, 10/1/2007
DOKUMENT/MPI
Available now
> Solidly entertaining inspirational film will have specialized appeal.
Director Volker Schlöndorff takes a leisurely, episodic approach to telling the story of Polish shipyard worker Agnieszka Kowalska (effectively played by Katharina Thalbach), whose activism led to the rise of the Solidarity movement and, ultimately, to the elimination of Soviet influence. Although many critics have chided Schloendorff for playing fast and loose with historical facts, Strike succeeds as drama because he successfully captures the David-and-Goliath nature of this great ideological conflict.
Shelf Talk: Although Strike would have much greater resonance among Continental viewers, it deserves exposure here. The subtitles and unfamiliar cast members won’t help the film’s domestic prospects, though, and while it won Bavarian Film Awards for Best Actress and Best Cinematography, the fact that it only eked out $8,900 in ticket sales during a token theatrical release earlier this year certainly doesn’t bode well. Still, it has the potential to perform well in cosmopolitan areas and college towns if it’s promoted a bit.
Foreign-language drama, color, NR (mature themes, language), 104 min., German and Polish with English subtitles, DVD $19.98
Extras: none
Director: Volker Schlöndorff
First Run: L, July 2007, <$1 mil.
