Veteran Polish director Andrzej Wajda' Katyn (aka Post Mortem) is set to have its international premiere at next February's Berlinale, Screen Daily.com learnt during this week's Warsaw Filmfest.

The $5.8m (PLN 15m) Polish-French co-production by Akson Studio with Margaret Menegoz's Les Films du Losange as minority partner had received its world premiere as a special screening during the grand opening of the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia last month and was shown in a market-only presentation as part of Warsaw's CentEast Market this week.

Since being released theatrically in Poland by ITI Cinema on Sept 21, Katyn has clocked over 1.73m admissions and has held the number one position in the box office for the past four weekends. The film had attracted more 265,000 admissions on its first weekend when it knocked The Bourne Ultimatum from the top spot locally.

According to Polish sources, the film - which is Poland's submission for the Oscar Best Foreign Language Film category - has been seen en masse by school groups and the nations's Defence Minister has reportedly issued a missive calling on all of the 130,000 armed forces to see the film about the murder of 22,000 Polish officers in the woods near Katyn, Russia, and Kharkhov, Ukraine during the Second World War.

This story is a particularly poignant and personal one for Wajda since his father, a captain in the 72nd Infantry Regiment, was one of the victims of the Katyn massacre.

At the moment, it is not known whether Katyn will screen in or out of competition in the official Competiion section or perhaps in the Berlinale Special sidebar.


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