Gala Opening 11th Annual Polish Film Festival Los Angeles

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Updated Tuesday, April 20, 2010 12:50pm

Gala Opening 11th Annual Polish Film Festival Los Angeles

When: Tuesday, April 20, 2010

6:00pm, media check-in, no earlier please.

6:30pm, talent arrivals & reception

7:30pm, screening of The Children of Irena Sendler

What: 11thth Annual Polish Film Festival Los Angeles, http://www.polishfilmla.org

Why: The Gala Opening of the 11th Annual Polish Film Festival Los Angeles and celebration of Opening Night film, The Children of Irena Sendler starring Anna Paquin, Marcia Gay Harden, Goran Visnijc, Steven Speirs, Paul Freeman, Maja Ostaszewska, Danuta Stenka, Krzysztof Pieczynski and Jerzy Nowak.

Where: Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028, USA, T: (323) 461-2020

Who: Festival Founder Vladek Juszkiewicz

Who: (The following names are scheduled to appear)

From the cast & crew of The Children of Irena Sendler: Jan A.P. Kaczmarek, Waldemar Kalinowski, Beata Pisula, Jeff Most, Jeff Rice, Brent Shields.

Festival Jurors: Matt Craven, Margaret O'Brien, Brett Ratner, Billy Dee Williams, Jim Miller, Jeff Orsa, Jeff Stimmel.

Guests: Ed Harris, Olivier Gruner, Max Ryan – Sex And The City 2.

Opening Night Film: THE CHILDREN OF IRENA SENDER

As a Polish Catholic social worker in the early 1940's, Irena Sendler created and led a conspiracy of women who moved in and out of Warsaw's Jewish Ghetto disguised as nurses employed by the Warsaw's Health Department. Though they worked under the guise of merely attempting to prevent and contain the spread of typhus and spotted fever, Sendler and her brave cohorts emerged each time with the children of consenting Jewish parents. The children were sometimes sedated and hidden inside boxes, suitcases and coffins as a means of rescuing them from their imminent deportation to death camps. They were given new identities and placed with Polish families and in convents. Sendler kept a hidden record of their birth names and where they were placed with the hope that they would some day be reunited with their own families.

In 1943, the Nazis discovered Sendler's daring and dangerous ruse and arrested her. She was tortured by Gestapo agents and suffered broken feet. On the day of her scheduled execution she was rescued by "Zegota," the underground network with which she worked to save the Jewish children.

As a result of Sendler's efforts, approximately 2,500 children were smuggled to safety. Not a single child she rescued was ever betrayed or discovered by the Nazis.

Festival Opening Night Media & Celebrity Contact:

Popular Press Media Group (PPMG)

310-860-7774, on-site cell 310-600-0575, media@ppmg.info

Festival Contact:

Vladek Juszkiewicz (818) 982-8827,

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