Director: Andrzej Munk, (Witold Lesiewicz)
Country: Poland
Award: none
Movement: Polish School
Passenger (Polish: Pasażerka) is a 1963 Polish feature film directed by Andrzej Munk. When Munk died in a car crash during production, the unfinished film was assembled for release by directors Witold Lesiewicz and Andrzej Brzozowski. A German woman on a ship coming back to Europe notices a face of another woman which brings recollections from the past. She tells her husband that she has been an overseer in Auschwitz during the war, but she has actually saved a woman’s life. Her vision is shown and then the actual events. Munk, at the age of 39, died in a car accident while the film was in production. The completed scenes were combined from parts of original footage and screenplay sketches by Witold Lesiewicz. The methods used are explained in a voice-over during the course of the film, so its unfinished state itself takes a documentary form. Parts of the film were shot at Auschwitz. The source for The Passenger was a radio drama titled Passenger from Cabin Number 45, written by Zofia Posmysz-Piasecka in 1959. Posmysz's play was later reworked into a novel. It was published in 1962 as Pasażerka.
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