A Year of the Quiet Sun

Just after the Second World War, in a town resettled inside Poland's new borders, Emilia lives with her mother. Norman, an American soldier, is there on duty. The two become close without a shared language. Norman is to return to his country and Emilia is to follow with her mother. But the mother knows something Emilia does not. Krzysztof Zanussi's film describes a period when nothing had settled back into place after the war: displaced people, emptied houses, uncertain borders. The love story stands on that ground and is not tied off with an easy ending. Maja Komorowska plays Emilia and Scott Wilson plays Norman. Sławomir Idziak shot it and Wojciech Kilar wrote the music. The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1984.