The Very Short Strike – Polish Film Festival

A docudrama. The film accounts for the events of 14th and 15th of December 1981. The University of Lodz students called to protest by the Independent Students’ Union organized a sit-down strike on the university area protesting against the imposition of martial law. They barricaded themselves in the Faculty of Law and Administration building, threw leaflets and hanged posters calling for revolt. Many of them came out on the streets to protest. The strike ended up with a brutal pacification. ZOMO units broke into and demolished the building. To commemorate the 25 years after the strike, the citizens and current students try to reconstruct those tragic events in the form of a psychodrama. The film consists of the strike participants and witnesses statements, photo archive materials and staged sequences (e.g. the ZOMO pacification action).