The director's father was killed in this massacre. Andrzej Wajda was only 13 years old then. His father's remains were never found.
Poland's Official Submission to the Best Foreign Language Film Category of the 80th Annual Academy Awards (2008).
Although the personal story in the film is a fictionalised one, the history against which it was set is very real, and is a terrible part of Polish war history. Approximately 22,000 people were murdered by the Soviets during April and May of 1940 after their occupation of eastern Poland. Of those victims, about 14,000 were Polish military officers or police, while the remaining victims were educated professionals and community leaders. They were considered to be "intelligentsia" by the Soviet occupiers, and therefore dangerous to both the regime and Communist ideology. Their bodies were buried in mass graves in various locations, but the first graves were discovered in the Katyn Forest by the Germans and revealed to the world after their invasion of Russia. This is the origin of the name of the Katyn Massacre.
In memory of Captain Edward Herbert.