Korczak is a 1990 black-and-white biographical war film directed by Andrzej Wajda and written by Agnieszka Holland, about Polish-Jewish humanitarian Janusz Korczak. An international co-production between Poland, Germany and the United Kingdom, it stars Wojciech Pszoniak as Korczak, with Ewa Dałkowska, Teresa Budzisz-Krzyzanowska, Marzena Trybala, Piotr Kozlowski, Zbigniew Zamachowski and Jan Peszek. The film was screened out of competition at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival. The film was selected as the Polish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 63rd Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.

Reception

Among the strongest defendants of the epic was Marek Edelman, the Polish Jew who survived the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Wajda saw the idea of showing the children being led into the Treblinka gas chambers as unnecessary addition of tearjerking moments. Annette Insdorf, a film scholar and strong supporter of Wajda, considers Korczak to be a masterpiece alongside Wajda's own Ashes and Diamonds, in her commentary of Criterion Collection's DVD release of Wajda's War Trilogy.

Cast