Directed by: Roman Polanski
Writing credits: Wladyslaw Szpilman (Book); Ronald Harwood (Screenplay)
Movie Genre: Biography/Drama/Music/War
Released: 2002
Rating: R
This is the true story of Wladyslaw Szpilman who, in the 1930s, was known as the most accomplished piano player in all of Poland. At the outbreak of the Second World War, however, Szpilman becomes subject to the anti-Jewish laws imposed by the conquering Germans.
By the start of the 1940s, Szpilman has seen his world go from piano concert halls to the Jewish Ghetto of Warsaw and then must suffer the tragedy of his family deported to a death camp, while Szpilman is conscripted into a forced German Labour Compound.
At last deciding to escape, Szpilman goes into hiding as a Jewish refugee where he is witness to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943 and the Warsaw City Revolt in 1944.
Tagline: Music was his passion. Survival was his masterpiece.