Made for West-German television in 1972, this loose adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov's cult novel The Master and Margarita (published posthumously in 1967) is perhaps the most experimental feature in Andrzej Wajda's oeuvre. The film stages Jesus' trial by the titular Roman consul in present-day Germany, with a Way of the Cross taking place in the busy streets of Frankfurt, and the legal proceedings set in the Nurmberg remnants of monumental architecture of the Nazi era. Casting Wajda regular Wojciech Pszoniak as Jesus (referred to as Yeshua Ha-Nozri) proved to be an inspired choice, while Wajda himself appears as a TV reporter bearing witness to the Passion. The film originally aired on the Good Friday of March 29, 1972 and remains a bold retelling of the foundational event of Christianity - as well as one that might have inspired Norman Jewison's later staging of the Gospels in contemporary costume in Jesus Christ Superstar (1973).
In partnership with the Goethe Institut.
