Władze kinematografii i telewizji wobec problemów środowiska młodych filmowców na przełomie lat siedemdziesiątych i osiemdziesiątych
The State Authorities of Cinema and Television toward the Problems of Young Filmmakers at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s

Summary/Abstract: Among young filmmakers, the number of directors and cinematographers without a (full-time) job in their learned profession tripled in five years (from 1976 to 1981). As a result, nearly 120 young filmmakers were unemployed at the dawn of 1981, most of whom did not get the chance to make their film debut in an out-of-school setting either. Considering the number of directors and cinematographers who entered the profession in the preceding decades, it should be noted that the late 1970s and early 1980s were characterised by an oversupply of directors and cinematographers in relation to the number of vacancies and the production capacity of socialist cinematography (around thirty full-length live-action films were made annually). The author identifies the reasons for this state of affairs and reconstructs the process of solving these problems. It analyses both the activities of the cinematographic and television authorities towards the environment of young filmmakers and the Youth Circle of the Polish Filmmakers Association, whose initiatives provoked the state authorities to act. They resulted in the establishment, during the carnival of Solidarity, of the independent Karol Irzykowski Film Studio, which brought together filmmakers who had not made their debut yet. Its establishment proved to be a remedy to alleviate the financial plight of young filmmakers.

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