Tapes from Jastrzebie

Overview

A portrait of the inhabitants of Jastrzębie (a mining town in Silesia) – young men and women who came there to begin their adult lives. Jastrzębie received municipal rights in 1963, but it is still a huge construction site. Children slide down the heaps of coal, located between the blocks of flats. Young women, dressed in worker jackets, look for their husbands. The life of the inhabitants is subordinated to communicates released by the council of the mine. Working days are about queues and listening to the radio, and days off are about festivals and performances of the mining band. Boxing in the ring and fights in the streets. The directorial debut of Stanisław Manturzewski, a sociologist, journalist, and documentary filmmaker, made in collaboration with Stanisław Niedbalski, a cameraman.