Panaji, Nov 29 (IANS): Poland churned out qualitative, richer cinema during the repressive and censorship oriented communist regime in pre-1990s, than in freer and more open contemporary times, a leading Polish director said here Tuesday.

Speaking to IANS Tuesday Wieslaw Saniewski, a leading director, said that the technology and the importance of visuals in cinema had ridden rough shod over the layered brilliance and the metaphoric essence so associated with Polish cinema in the years before 1989, when Poland was ruled by the communist regime.

"We made better films then. The films were more symbolic. They had metaphor and were more interesting at the artistic level...Today it is not so. There are only visual elements in cinema now. It is not so realistic," said Saniewski, whose film "The Winner" is being screened at the on-going 42nd International Film Festival of India (IFFI) here.

Saniewski's three films were banned by the communist regime.

Before the 1990s, Poland was associated with brilliant cinema, despite censorship, especially vis a vis the art of story telling and cinematography, with cinematic legends Like Roman Polanski, Krzystof Kieslowski, Andrzej Wajda and Andrzej Zulawski.

Contemporary Poland produces nearly 30 to 40 films annually.