Lech Wałęsa
Also Known As: Lech Walesa
Biography: Lech Wałęsa (born 29 September 1943) is a Polish statesman, dissident, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who served as the President of Poland between 1990 and 1995. After winning the 1990 election, Wałęsa became the first democratically elected President of Poland since 1926 and the first-ever Polish president elected by popular vote. A shipyard electrician by trade, Wałęsa became the leader of the Solidarity movement, and led a successful pro-democratic effort, which in 1989 ended Communist rule in Poland and ushered in the end of the Cold War. While working at the Lenin Shipyard (now Gdańsk Shipyard), Wałęsa, an electrician, became a trade-union activist, for which he was persecuted by the government, placed under surveillance, fired in 1976, and arrested several times. In August 1980, he was instrumental in political negotiations that led to the ground-breaking Gdańsk Agreement between striking workers and the government. He co-founded the Solidarity trade-union, whose membership rose to over ten million. After martial law in Poland was imposed and Solidarity was outlawed, Wałęsa was again arrested. Released from custody, he continued his activism and was prominent in the establishment of the Round Table Agreement that led to the semi-free 1989 Polish legislative election and a Solidarity-led government. He presided over Poland's transition from Marxist–Leninist state socialism into a free-market capitalist liberal democracy, but his active role in Polish politics diminished after he narrowly lost the 1995 Polish presidential election. In 1995, he established the Lech Wałęsa Institute. Since 1980, Wałęsa has received hundreds of prizes, honors and awards from multiple countries and organizations worldwide. He was named the Time Person of the Year (1981) and one of Time's 100 most important people of the 20th century (1999). He has received over forty honorary degrees, including from Harvard University and Columbia University, as well as dozens of the highest state orders, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, and the French Grand Cross of Legion of Honour. In 1989, Wałęsa was the first foreign non-head of state to address the Joint Meeting of the U.S. Congress. The Gdańsk Lech Wałęsa Airport has borne his name since 2004. Wałęsa was born in Popowo, Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia, Germany (German-occupied Poland). His father, Bolesław Wałęsa (1908–1945), was a carpenter who was rounded up and interned in a forced labour camp at Młyniec (outpost of KL Stutthof) by the German occupying forces before Lech was born. Bolesław returned home after the war but died two months later from exhaustion and illness. Lech's mother, Feliksa Wałęsa (née Kamieńska; 1916–1975), has been credited with shaping her son's beliefs and tenacity. ... Source: Article "Lech Wałęsa" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: Popowo, kujawsko-pomorskie, Polska
Adult: No
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In the Grip of Gazprom
Overview: The war in the Ukraine has changed the way many European countries view Russian politics. Suddenly it became clear how dependent countries had become on Russian gas imports for decades and what Vladimir Putin was up to. However, no country needs more gas than Germany. It was only after Russia's invasion of the Ukraine that the German government realized that Russia had long used gas as a weapon to impose its will on states. The instrument created for this purpose is the natural gas production company GAZPROM. So how did Germany become so dependent on Russian gas? The documentary shows how, over several decades and several changes of government, a broad alliance of politicians and business representatives did everything possible to secure Germany's energy supply with cheap Russian gas, while the Kremlin's foreign policy became increasingly aggressive and the warnings of experts went unheeded.
Genres: Documentary History TV Movie
Original Language: de
Release Date: 2023-02-07
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The Birth of Solidarity
Overview: A film showing the social mood and tensions in the period between the end of the strikes in August 1980 and the registration of the Solidarity Trade Union in November 1980.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: pl
Release Date: 1981-05-01
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Człowiek ze studni
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Genres: Documentary
Original Language: pl
Release Date: 1991-01-01
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Der General und der Elektriker: Machtkampf in Polen
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Genres: Documentary
Original Language: de
Release Date: 2023-06-03
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Intervision Song Contest - schlager i kalla krigets skugga
Overview: Documentary about the Intervision Song Contest in general and the 1980 edition in particular. Focuses on Finland's participation and the shipyard strikes in Gdansk at the time.
Genres: Documentary Music
Original Language: sv
Release Date: 2022-05-07
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Gra o Nobla
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Genres: Documentary Drama
Original Language: pl
Release Date: 2008-01-01
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Workers '80
Overview: Documentary about the beginning of Solidarnosc.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: pl
Release Date: 1982-02-12
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Hammer & Tickle
Overview: Hammer & Tickle: The Communist Joke Book is a 2006 propaganda documentary film about "jokes" under the Soviet Union.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2007-01-08
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Man of Iron
Overview: In Warsaw in 1980, the Communist Party sends disgruntled radio reporter Winkel to Gdańsk to dig up dirt on the shipyard strikers - particularly on Maciek Tomczyk, an independent labour union leader whose father was killed in the December 1970 protests. Posing as sympathetic, Winkel interviews the people surrounding Tomczyk, including his detained wife, Agnieszka.
Genres: Drama History
Original Language: pl
Release Date: 1981-07-27
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Bajland
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Genres: Comedy
Original Language: pl
Release Date: 2000-11-24
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Tell No One
Overview: Polish documentary directed by Tomasz Sekielski about child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Poland.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: pl
Release Date: 2019-05-11
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Meeting Gorbachev
Overview: Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the Soviet Union, sits down with filmmaker Werner Herzog to discuss his many achievements. Topics include the talks to reduce nuclear weapons, the reunification of Germany and the dissolution of his country.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2019-05-03
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Solidarność: How Solidarity Changed Europe
Overview: Gdańsk, Poland, September 1980. Lech Wałęsa and other Lenin shipyard workers found Solidarność (Solidarity), the first independent trade union behind the Iron Curtain. The long and hard battle to bring down communist dictatorship has begun.
Genres: Documentary History TV Movie
Original Language: de
Release Date: 2019-10-01
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1979: Big Bang of the Present
Overview: Deng Xiaoping's economic and political opening in China. Margaret Thatcher's extreme economic measures in the United Kingdom. Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic Revolution in Iran. Pope John Paul II's visit to Poland. Saddam Hussein's rise to power in Iraq. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The nuclear accident at the Harrisburg power plant and the birth of ecological activism. The year 1979, the beginning of the future.
Genres: Documentary History TV Movie
Original Language: de
Release Date: 2019-12-10
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Stalin and the Katyn Massacre
Overview: The Katyn massacre, carried out by the Soviet NKVD in 1940, was only one of many unspeakable crimes committed by Stalin's ruthless executioners over three decades. The mass murder of thousands of Polish officers was part of a relentless purge, the secrets and details of which have only recently been partially revealed.
Genres: Documentary History TV Movie
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 2020-02-18
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Jan Paweł II: Szukałem Was...
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Genres: Documentary
Original Language: pl
Release Date: 2011-03-11
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The Last Days of the USSR
Overview: From 1989 to 1991 a string of unpredictable events happened that brought to light the rivalry between two men: Gorbachev, hindered by the economic results of his perestroika, and Yeltsin, embodying the hopes of the Russian people. Illustrated with interviews of top protagonists such as Mikhail Gobachev himself, the documentary recounts the critical last two years of the former USSR.
Genres: Documentary History TV Movie
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 2011-12-12
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Solidarność, Solidarność...
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Genres: History Comedy Drama
Original Language: pl
Release Date: 2005-08-31
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Wałęsa by Wałęsa
Overview: Lech Wałęsa. One of the most important and at the same time most colourful figures in Polish history. In communist Poland he was a simple electrician, then he led the downfall of communism in Poland, and consequently in other countries of Eastern Europe. Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 1983, President of Poland from 1990 to 1995. The film tells the incredible story of Lech Wałęsa and his wife Danuta.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: pl
Release Date: 2017-04-30
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Have No Fear: The Life of Pope John Paul II
Overview: The eventful life of a humble Polish priest who once decried the pomp of the Catholic Church "a circus" and labeled the Pope a "prisoner of the Vatican" before ascending to the papal throne to usher Catholicism into the 21st century. Born in Poland and forced to carry on following the untimely death of his family, Karol Wojtyla endured both personal hardships and the rape of his homeland by the Third Reich to spread the word of God through the Catholic Church. Later, as Pope John Paul II, Wojtyla was beloved by millions of Catholics worldwide. From the sexual-abuse scandal that shook the American Catholic Church in the later-20th century to the murder of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero and the near-fatal assassination attempt made on his own life, Pope John Paul II endured to bridge the gap between various faiths until his death resulting from Parkinson's disease in April of 2005.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2006-02-24
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