Revered 79-year-old Polish auteur AndrzejWajda, in Berlin to receive an honorary Golden Bear,has revealed details of what promises to be one of the most ambitious andcontentious films he has ever made.

The new feature will deal with the KatynForest massacre, in which an estimated20,000 Poles were killed by the Soviet Union during the Second World War.

Wajda'sfather, Jakub Wajda, acaptain in the 72nd Infantry Regiment, was among those murdered.

More than 60 years on, the precise details of the massacreremain shrouded in mystery. There are few documents detailing the killings andvirtually no first-hand testimony. Only during the Gorbachev era did theRussians finally admit their culpability for the massacre.

'My film will be the first one about this massacre,' Wajda said. He speculated that the mass killings wereprompted by the Soviet desire for revenge against the Poles, who had defeatedthem in the 1920 Polish-Russian war.

The script is at fourth draft stage and Wajdais trying to get his film into production later this year. French financiershave offered to board the project but the director is keen to raise the budgetback home. 'It is a Polish theme and I'd like to do it with Polish money andPolish actors. It should be a Polish production,' Wajdadeclared