Entitled The One Who is Dying, the Polish Radio play is among 26 European productions shortlisted for the Prix Europa in the audio fiction category, the public broadcaster’s IAR news agency has reported.
Written by Magdalena Miecznicka and directed by Łukasz Lewandowski, the play tells the story of the infamous killing of 18-year-old Grzegorz Przemyk by Poland’s communist police in May 1983.
Przemyk was arrested in Warsaw’s Old Town while celebrating graduation from high school with friends, the IAR news agency reported.
A police patrol asked him to produce an ID card, and when Przemyk refused, he was taken to a police station and beaten up.
He died in hospital two days later.
Poland’s then-communist authorities launched a cover-up operation, seeking to protect police officers from responsibility for killing Przemyk, IAR noted.
Communist officials said doctors and nurses at the hospital were to blame for the teenager’s death, with one of the doctors spending 13 months in prison.
Meanwhile, communist state media portrayed Przemyk as a “degenerate,” hoping the public would accept the killing of “a depraved young man,” the IAR news agency reported.
The Polish Radio play charts Przemyk’s story.
The One Who is Dying won two awards, for best directing and best original score, at Poland’s Two Theatres festival in June.
The production is available to listen on the Polish Radio website.
The 2023 Prix Europa awards, for Europe’s best radio, TV/video and digital productions, will be announced at a gala in Berlin on October 27.
The ceremony will be the culmination of the Prix Europa festival, which starts in the German capital on October 22, the IAR news agency reported.
(pm/gs)
Source: IAR, polskieradio.pl, Prix Europa
