POLISH FILM ACADEMY

Film, theatre and television director, screenwriter, novelist, translator. Born on April 27, 1943 in Warsaw. A graduate of philosophy at the University of Warsaw and the Directing Department of the State Higher School of Film, Television and Theatre in Łódź (1973). Translator of theatre plays, author of short stories published in literary magazines and three novels: Przesłuchanie/ Interrogation (1983), Przyznaję się do winy/I Plead Guilty (1985), Sól i pieprz /Salt and Pepper (2000).

Before his feature debut – Kobieta i kobieta/Woman and Woman (1979), co-directed with Janusz Dymek – he had collaborated with Krzysztof Zanussi on the set of Iluminacja/Illumination (1972) and Daniel Szczechura on the animations – Hobby (1968) and Desant/Landing (1986), and made several documentaries, including Maraton/The Marathon (1971) or Smak muzyki/The Taste of Music (1976). In 1980, he directed Zajęcia dydaktyczne/Teaching, an episode of the TV film series Sytuacje rodzinne/Family Situations; two years later he made the famous Przesłuchanie/Interrogation, deemed by the Polish authorities to be the most anti-communist film in the history of communism. Bugajski's film was not so much postponed (“put on the shelf”), as ordered to be physically destroyed, and the director, deprived of the right to work in his profession, was forced to emigrate. He moved to Canada, where he continued his career as a filmmaker, directing a feature film Clearcut (1991) and episodes of popular TV series, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Twilight Zone. A copy of Przesłuchanie/Interrogation was rescued, and the film was released unofficially via underground distribution on videotapes during Martial Law in Poland.

Set in the 1950s, it is a moving story about an innocent singer who is arrested and taken to a communist prison where she is subjected to brutal interrogation. The film did not have its official Polish release until the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia in 1989. After a landslide of awards in Gdynia, Bugajski’s film was appreciated in Chicago, Belgrade and Cannes, where Krystyna Janda’s performance was awarded a prize for the best female role.

In 1995, in Poland, the director filmed Gracze/Players, a political fiction film set during the presidential campaign of Lech Wałęsa. Two years later, he returned to Poland. For several years he was the chief director of TVP Program 1 News. In 2009, he made the film Generał Nil/General Nil (awarded in Chicago, Hanover, Houston), in which he carefully reconstructed the last years of the legendary commander of the Polish Home Army, Brigadier General August Emil Fieldorf, codenamed “Nil”, and three years later he completed Układ zamknięty/Closed System – a story (based on actual events) of thriving entrepreneurs who, as a result of a conspiracy of corrupt officials, were arrested on suspicion of involvement in an organised criminal group.

Ryszard Bugajski was awarded the Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis (2008) and the Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (2008).

 Jerzy Armata