To fully understand how I was able to suddenly start filming
a screenplay like the one for 'Man of Marble',
I need to go back a little the the events following '68.
As I mentioned, the film production teams were taken over by people nominated by the Party,
and this lasted for several years.
When the wind of change began to blow, so to speak,
I started to convince friends who'd headed these teams:
Jerzy Kawalerowicz, Stanisław Różewicz, and others,
that they should reclaim them,
that we should get together because the Polish Association of Film-makers
had always been an organisation that played an important role
and participated in the events and various decisions that took place in the film world.
Jerzy Kawalerowicz had been our chairman from the very beginning.
I told them to try to get together through the Association
and to try to regain their film teams that way;
at that time it was clear
that they weren't fulfilling the role they'd had when they'd been formed.
These random people who now headed these teams -
even the Party wasn't satisfied with them
as they were incapable of imposing any kind of order on us.
For example, 'Landscape after Battle' was made by one of these teams.
They had no control over the situation in relation to the directors on whom they couldn't impose anything.
On the other hand, they didn't initiate anything
that would have been really worthwhile like the old teams had.
A new team appeared among the existing ones
because my friends decided that I could head one,
and that's how Zespół Filmowy X was formed, made up of young people.
Only film directors joined this group all of whom were just starting out,
which created a very difficult situation for me.
On the one hand, the authorities couldn't backtrack to give me this team
while on the other, they did everything they could to make it disband automatically.
This could have happened in the following way.
For a film director to make their debut, they had to make a film for TV.
But if television wasn't accepting any young people's projects,
and were just sending them away, then they couldn't make their debut.
If they couldn't make their debut, then what were they doing in my team?
The natural course of events would have been for them to have joined different teams
to look for a place there.
My team would have disintegrated through lack of momentum.
Nevertheless, this isn't how it ended because the moment came when they were able to break through into TV
and first Falk made a film, then Agnieszka Holland, and then others.
