Afterimage

A look at the life of renowned painter Wladyslaw Strzeminski (brilliantly played by Polish superstar Boguslaw Linda). Strzeminski, who worked as a professor at the National School of Fine Arts in Lodz was a great artist and co-creator of the theory of Unism. Famous before the Second World War, his students treated him like the “messiah of modern painting,” but university authorities and the Ministry of Culture had a very different opinion. Unlike artists loyal to the doctrines of socialist realism and fulfilling Party tasks, Strzeminski did not compromise his art. He refused to comply with Party regulations, and he was eventually expelled from the university and the artists’ union. Strzeminski’s students continued to support him, visiting him for private lectures, penning his Theory of Vision, and listening to his critique of their work. But jobless Strzeminski, impaired due to a missing arm and leg, soon fell into poverty and poor health as the Communist authorities remain persistent in their actions to ruin him.