The 2019 film Corpus Christi, directed by Jan Komasa, was
nominated for a 2020 Oscar.
Mr. Scott Roxborough wrote a misleading article about Corpus
Christi which presents wrong information about contemporary
Polish politics and especially about the Smolensk Catastrophe.
This harms the image of Poland, the Poles, and by extension
Polish Americans. Please email John Czop's article below to Mr.
Roxborough to encourage him to publish a correction in the Hollywood
Reporter, so the public may know the truth of what really
is at stake in today's Poland.
Mr.
Scott Roxborough
Europe
Bureau Chief
THE
HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
Matthew
Belloni Editorial Director
*********
Dear
Mr. Roxborough,
I
am writing in response to your 2 January 2020
article, How 'Corpus Christi' Director Hopes
to Bridge Poland's Cultural Divide,
published in the 13 January 2020 issue of The Hollywood
Reporter. Your description of the 2019
film Corpus Christi, written by Mateusz
Pacewicz and directed by Jan Komasa, is devoid
of critical detachment. This is why your
article is a disservice to those in the West who
want to know the truth about "Poland's Cultural
Divide".
In "Corpus Christi", Messrs. Pacewicz
and Komasa show a rural versus urban cultural
divide in order to occlude what really is at
stake: the struggle of freedom loving Poles,
present in both town and countryside, to remove
former communists, also entrenched in urban and
rural Poland, from their positions of privilege
and power.
Moreover,
Messrs. Pacewicz and Komasa clearly propagate
the message of the former communist elite. Why
do you collaborate in their lurid project by
writing: Poland's national divide is played
out in miniature in " Corpus Cristi", with the
tragedy of the car accident standing in for
the 2010 Smolensk catastrophe, the plane crash
that killed 96 Polish dignitaries, including
then President Lech Kaczynski and his
wife Maria. Kaczynski's twin brother,
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, weaponized the national
tragedy, using it to leverage political power
for his right-wing Law and Justice Party,
which now runs Poland (and has been heavily
criticized by the European union for cracking
down on free speech and LGBT rights).
Messrs. Pacewicz and Komasa trivialize,
minimize, and misinform the public about the
Smolensk Catastrophe by comparing it in their
film, set in rural Poland, to an automobile
accident. Corpus Cristi shows
credulous villagers, who are duped by a former
convict masquerading as a fake priest,
expressing competing views on the causes of the
automobile accident in which seven young
villagers died. Your article legitimizes
viewing the Smolensk Catastrophe as an aviation
accident like the film's automobile accident.
Today, there is no debate on the causes of the
Smolensk Catastrophe. This Catastrophe was no
accident; against the facts, the makers of "Corpus
Christi" perpetuate the Smolensk lie,
which benefits former communists, in league with
Putin's Kremlin, who continue to occupy
important positions in today's Poland.
Recently, the world's
leading expert on aviation accidents,
Frank Taylor, a British citizen, concluded
that the Smolensk Catastrophe was NO
ACCIDENT. Instead, Taylor is convinced
that President Kaczynski's plane exploded
above the runway of Smolensk North
Military Airfield, in the western part of
the Russian Federation, as the result of
the detonation inside the aircraft of two
or more bombs.
Your
article about "Corpus Christi" takes on
very serious issues, which affect the
security of Poland and the
Atlantic World in the context of
increasingly aggressive and reckless Kremlin
revanchism. You and the Kremlin still
insist, against the facts, that the Smolensk
Catastrophe was an accident, and not a mass
assassination.
The
10 million Polish Americans in the United States,
who consume Hollywood products, will be dismayed
if you do not, BEFORE THE 2020 OSCARS, publish a
correction to your article in which you make it
clear that the Smolensk Catastrophe was NOT an
accident, but a mass
assassination and a crime without punishment.
If
you do not do so, it shows that your article
deliberately legitimizes the tendentious views
supported by former communists who are trying to
hold on to power in Poland through duplicity by
propagating the Smolensk Lie.
Against the facts, it is the transformed
communists who see the Smolensk Catastrophe as an
accident and who want to make deals with the
Kremlin on natural gas rather than ensure Poland's
energy independence through the Three Seas
Initiative. This is why your article threatens the
security and sovereignty of Poland, and the best
interests of the USA and all the other NATO
countries.
Sincerely,
Director of Policy Planning
Polish American Congress
1612 K Street, NW, Suite 1200
Washington, DC 20006
Fax: (202) 835-1565
)