The Birch Street (Ulica Brzozowa, 1947)
Accordion (Harmonia, 1947)
Steam Engine Pt-47 (Parowóz Pt 47, 1949)
My City (Moje miasto, 1950)
First Harvest (Pierwszy plon, 1950) - co-directed with Jan Zelnik
Centralized Control of the Production Process (Scentralizowana kontrola przebiegu produkcji, 1951)
Herbalists of the Stone Valley (Zielarze z Kamiennej Doliny, 1952)
Johnny's Bird Feeder (Karmik Jankowy, 1952)
Scouts at the Rally (Harcerze na zlocie, 1952)
Cultural Review No. 2/53 (Przegląd kulturalny Nr 2/53, 1953)
Our Ensemble (Nasz zespół, 1955)
Dir: Wojciech Jerzy Has
(The Birch Street co-directed by Stanisław Różewicz, First Harvest co-directed by Jan Zelnik, Scouts at the Rally co-directed by Stanisław Urbanowicz)
By the time he made his first feature The Noose, Wojciech Has had already been making his own films for a decade. Made when still in his early twenties, Birch Street is a poetic documentary study of a war-ravaged Warsaw street being painstakingly returned to civilisation, while Harmonia was his fiction debut, the story of an impoverished boy’s dream of obtaining an accordion – and both films already reveal Has’s characteristic preoccupation with objects and ornate decoration and the conflict between dream and reality in embryonic form.
Thereafter, Has worked as a documentary director for WFD, albeit entirely during the period of compulsory Socialist Realism. After falling foul of the authorities with My Town (a portrait of his native Kraków that was considered too personal), Has was on his best career-preserving behaviour with the later films, but they still nonetheless occasionally show a personal touch, on top of their inherent historical fascination as vivid snapshots of a particular historical and ideological period. The most ambitious is Our Ensemble, Has’s first film in colour, a nearly 40-minute portrait of a traditional folk ensemble studded with musical numbers staged imaginatively enough to confirm that Has was ready to move into feature films.
