POLISH FILM ACADEMY

Film, theatre and television director, writer and educator. He was born February 28, 1944, in Łódź. A graduate of the Directing Department of the State Film School in Łódź (1969, diploma in 1998). In the years 1964-1968, he worked as an assistant at the Studio of Small Film Forms "Se-Ma-For" in Łódź where he made Lekcja anatomii/Anatomy Lesson (1968). After graduating, he worked at the “Czołówka” Film Studio in Warsaw, where he completed two shorts – Podróżni jak inni/ Travellers Like Others (1969) and Wielkanoc/Easter (1974), as well as the three-part TV series Odejścia, powroty/Departures, Returns (1972).

He debuted as a feature film director in 1978 with Zmory/Nightmares (awards in Gdynia and San Sebastian, the Andrzej Munk Award, Golden Camera) – a brilliant adaptation of the notorious book by Emil Zegadłowicz, set in a small Galician town in the early twentieth century, devoted to the theme of maturation – both biological and mental. His next film, Klucznik/Steward (1979, awards in Olsztyn), based on the drama by Wiesław Myśliwski, is set during land reform. The dying Count pretends not to notice the changes, and his old steward, out of mercy, does not tell him what is going on. Dreszcze/Shivers (1981, Silver Bear in Berlin, the Grand Prix of the Jury in Gdansk), is to a certain extent a sequel of Zmory/Nightmares. It is 1955, a 13-year-old boy goes to a summer camp where he experiences a psychological and ideological metamorphosis. October 1956 is approaching ... It is a story about growing up in a particular era. Marczewsk’s films are few and far between. In 1990, he directed Ucieczka z kina Wolność/Escape from the 'Liberty' Cinema (Golden Lions and other awards in Gdynia, nomination for the European Film Award for Best Supporting Actor for Zbigniew Zamachowski), a grotesque tale of attempts to restrict freedom, and ten years later – Weiser (awards in Gdynia, 3 Eagles), based on the novel by Paweł Huelle. The film, in which the protagonist, a man of 40, is trying to reconstruct a mysterious event from his childhood, is not faithful to the letter of the book, but rather – as the writer claims – to its spirit.

Wojciech Marczewski is an accomplished teacher. In the 1990s, he served as Dean of the National Film and Television School in London. Since 1998, he has been teaching at Łódź Film School. He is co-founder and professor of Andrzej Wajda’s School in Warsaw. Since 2008, he has been a member of the Board of the Polish Film Institute and since 2011 – its chairman.

He was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (2011).

Jerzy Armata