Wartime Portraits: Women
A documentary series about heroines of the II World War. Stories told from the perspective of the characters are full of emotions and tension, they show courage, sacrifice, willpower but also recklessness or pragmatism. Characters of the series are not flawless monuments but regular women with their own problems, who happened to play an important role in the history. The visual style of the project is animadoc. It comprises archival materials, interviews with experts, and sequences of fictionalised scenes: shots stylised as comic frames, where an actor is connected with scenography hand-drawn by comics illustrators.
Episodes
Runtime: 31m
Halina Szymanska (1906 - 1989) wife of the last Polish military attaché in Berlin. After the outbreak of WWII, she meets admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the head of the Abwehr. As a result of this meeting, Halina becomes a Polish-British MI6 spy.
Runtime: 30m
Sixteen-year-old Halina Szwarc volunteered for the conspiracy. In the Third Reich, she conducted sabotage and espionage activities, gaining invaluable information about the activities of the German army.
Runtime: 30m
Wladyslawa Macieszyna (1888 - 1967) served in the Pilsudski Legions, was a senator of the 4th term of the interwar parliament. During World War II, she maintained contact with the Polish intelligence network in Germany.
Runtime: 31m
Helena Marusarzówna, champion in alpine skiing. From September 1939, she participated in the Polish resistance movement, acting as a secret courier, whose duties included carrying mail, money along mountain trails, and leading people.
Runtime: 30m
Wanda Gertz disguised as a man took part in World War I, and then continued her military career fighting in the Polish-Soviet War and becoming Józef Pilsudski's trusted secretary.
