Ashes and Diamonds

Touched with the fire and rebellion of a new generation of Polish film makers

A morally complex post-war drama about a young resistance fighter caught between duty and humanity, where love offers a glimpse of redemption against the machinery of political obligation.

A young academy soldier, Maciek Chelmicki, is ordered to shoot the secretary of the KW PPR. A coincidence causes him to kill someone else. Meeting face to face with his victim, he gets a shock. He faces the necessity of repeating the assassination. He meets Krystyna, a girl working as a barmaid in the restaurant of the "Monopol" hotel. His affection for her makes him even more aware of the senselessness of killing at the end of the war. Loyalty to the oath he took, and thus the obligation to obey the order, tips the scales.