Little Rose

In the United States 1967 was the "Summer of Love" and youth was concerned with music, drugs and free love, but in Eastern Europe the first new waves of Democracy were stirring in the Soviet Bloc states. This was beginning to cause concern within the political and security services. The Soviet Union had taken a stand against the Israelis after their triumph in the Six Day War and the Jews once again became the scapegoats. They seized the opportunity 'to kill several birds with one stone' by using an "anti-Zionist" policy to undercut the appeal of the liberal wing of the PUWP and target Jews and intellectuals as outsiders seeking to weaken the national strength of Poland and the other Warsaw pact countries.

Later in the year the Polish National Theatre was ordered to perform a play to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution. Led by their director Kazimierz Dejmek the theatre choose Forefathers' Eve! This highly political play written in 1824 when updated for the current times showed no fondness for Russian or Polish Bolsheviks was performed to sold-out appreciative houses before the government ordered it closed after just 14 performances.

This is the historical context in which Jan Kidawa-Blonski’s (co-writer/director) historical drama is set. Adam Warczewski, a well known writer and university professor is suspected of clandestine contacts with anti-communist Western groups. The dreaded Polish Security Service assigns Roman Rozek to get the goods on the professor. Rozek pressures his girlfriend Kamila, a university secretary to spy on Warczewski and report back to him on the professor’s activities. In an effort to increase the value of her intelligence reports Roman pushes her to even become the professor’s lover claiming it is to protect the nation.

Kamila initially rebuffs him but then she begins to enjoy playing the role of a spy under the codename Little Rose. However as time goes by she discovers that she is merely a tool being used for political purposes. As she explores the professor’s world she begins to question what she has been asked to do and her loyalties waver. The surveillance operation is now a dangerous love triangle between her, Roman who becomes ever more dangerous and the gentle professor.

All of this plays out against the escalating political unrest as students and intellectuals take to the streets to demonstrate for free speech and other freedoms. Jan Kidawa-Blonski by focusing on this intimate story shows us how a totalitarian regime can crush the human spirit in the privacy of one’s own home just as surely as on the streets. No one is safe when a government will go to any lengths to protect its own interests rather than the freedom of its people.