Hands Up!(Movie, 1981)

Ręce do góry (known in its subtitled English version as Hands Up!) is a Polish drama film directed by Jerzy Skolimowski. It is the fourth of a series of semi-autobiographical films in which Skolimowski himself plays his alter ego Andrzej Leszczyc. At the time it was banned in Poland, under the Communist regime, for 18 years because it depicted the Stalinist past. The film was originally made in 1967 in monochrome by pl:Zespół Filmowy Syrena studio. In a 20-minute section (filmed in colour) added by Skolimowski in 1981 he explains how the original was withheld by Polish censors of the time and that this was a principal cause of his leaving his country; however following liberalisation in Poland, he was invited to resuscitate it. The introduction includes, apart from some fictional apocalyptic passages, shots of Beirut ruined by the civil wars of the 1970s, where Skolimowski is working as an actor on Volker Schlöndorff's German film Die Fälschung (Circle of Deceit), and also shots of London featuring demonstrations in favour of Solidarność, Speaker's Corner, and an exhibition of Skolimowski's own paintings. These sections include cameo roles by Bruno Ganz, David Essex, Mike Sa... ()