As ‘Ida’ Wins an Oscar, Poland Ends a Losing Streak

WARSAW — The utter tenacity with which the director Pawel Pawlikowski talked and talked and refused to be shooed off stage by the Oscar orchestra has been matched only by the Polish film industry’s own persistent, decades-long pursuit of international recognition.

Nine times Polish films have been nominated for best foreign language film — including works by such seminal filmmakers as Roman Polanski and Andrzej Wajda — but none have won until Sunday night’s award for “Ida,” a black-and-white drama set in 1962 Poland about an 18-year-old novitiate who discovers she is Jewish and has an aunt who is a prosecutor.

“It’s an enormous joy for all generations of Polish filmmakers who have been dreaming about an Oscar for many decades,” said Krzysztof Zanussi, 75, one of Poland’s most revered directors. “And now, finally, here it is!”

Agnieszka Odorowicz, general director of the Polish Film Institute, a government agency that helped finance the movie, declared the award a “very big deal,” and praised Mr. Pawlikowski’s tenacity at the microphone. “He said all he came to say,” she said.

“Those documentaries were really outstanding,” Mr. Zanussi said. “All those nominations for Polish productions were not a coincidence. Polish cinema is doing well.”

A version of this article appears in print on February 24, 2015, on page C7 of the New York edition with the headline: With an Oscar Win, Poland Ends a Losing Streak. Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe

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