Andrzej Żuławski

In spring 1977, however, the project came to a sudden halt with the appointment of the hardline ideologue Janusz Wilhelmi as the Vice-Minister of Culture. Perceiving the Selenites' battle against the Szerns as a thinly-veiled allegory of the Polish people's struggle with totalitarianism, Wilhelmi shut down the filming, which was 80% complete and ordered all materials destroyed.

Żuławski went back to France to find that the reels of unfinished film were preserved, along with costumes and props, by the Polish film studio and archives and by members of the film's cast and crew. A passage of another eight years was required, as glasnost and perestroika began to thaw the Cold War-dominated Eastern Europe, for Żuławski to be able to return again to Poland and edit the still-unfinished remnants into a 166-minute rough approximation of what the finished film might have been. On the Silver Globe premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1988, with some critics proclaiming it a ruined masterpiece. Read Less