All reports from the September 1980 Polish Film Festival in Gdansk share at least one opinion: that the highlight of the Festival was the screening of a rough cut of Workers '80, a documentary on that same summer's shipyard strike, and the negotiations in Gdansk that led to the advent of free trade unions in Poland. “Next to such raw political history,” wrote Ernest Callenbach, “no fiction film could quite stand up.”
Workers '80 was at first banned in Poland, then began screening, to packed houses of factory workers, in January. In addition to the issue of independent trade unions, the discussions around the negotiating table turned to issues of censorship, freedom of religion, political arrests and false testimonies, and, as one worker put it, “whether our system will be called a police system or a democratic system.”
Daniel Bickley describes the Festival screening, “a dramatic midnight showing...viewed by an overflow crowd...Workers '80 could not have been cruder in technique, more immediate in time, or more electrifying in impact.... This was history transformed into drama; mass struggle simplified into a conflict of personalities....
“On one side of the big negotiating table sat Lech Walesa (Va-wen-sa), scowling and recalcitrant, indulging in an occasional flourish of anger or indignation. Across from him sat his adversary, Mieczyslaw Jagielski, the urbane and sophisticated First Deputy Premier of Poland. As Jagielski surrendered on each point, an approving cheer resounded from the workers listening to the proceedings on a PA system out in the shipyard. When the final settlement was signed on the big screen, the Festival audience erupted in wild applause.” --in Cineaste