France pays tribute to Polish film giant Andrzej Wajda
French ministers and cultural figures paid tribute Monday to Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda, who died on Sunday at the age of 90.
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France has lost a "great friend" who had been recognised by the Cannes film festival early in his career, Culture Minister Audrey Azoulay said, hailing a "great director" who was a "European conscience".
"His life and his work were combined in the same heroic fight for freedom," she tweeted. "They should inspire us to e enlighten ourselves at a time when some of Europe's people are tempted to renounce what brings them together, the love of freedom."
Wajda's Man of Iron, a fictionalised account of the rise of the Solidarity trade union under the post-war communist regime, won the Golden Palm at Cannes in 1981.
"The uncontested master of Polish cinema, Andrzej Wajda was always a friend," former festival president Gilles Jacob told the AFP news agency. "He was a baroque filmmaker of a powerful lyricism. He was also the conscience of a whole people. He accompanied the somersaults of his country's history."
Wajda's second feature film Kanal, the first movie ever made about the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, won a prize at Cannes in 1957, while 2016's Afterimage was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and will represent Poland for the best director's Oscar this year.
Wajda was a "major political conscience, always in phase with Poland's history", National Cinema Centre president Frédérique Bredin said.
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