Jerzy Skolimowski
In attendance
Boxer, painter and occasional actor (he even appears interrogating Scarlett Johansson in the opening scene of Avengers Assemble), Jerzy Skolimowski is, above all, in the hearts of film lovers, a much-admired figure in the world of directing. From Polish cinemas to Hollywood studios, via Belgium and England, the quality of his films has never faltered, at any time, in any country.
A unique opportunity to rediscover the work of this cinematic genius, who has managed to reinvent himself at every turn of his career. Having made his name in the mid-1960s with his early slapstick films, followed by Walkover (1965), which was praised by Jean-Luc Godard, and Rysopis (1965), in which he played his own nostalgic alter ego, Skolimowski left a Poland stifled by communist censorship and went into exile in Belgium. There he directed The Departure (1967), a frenetic comedy alongside a sparkling Jean-Pierre Léaud, which earned him the Silver Bear for Best Director at Berlin. Then came England and Deep End (1970), a haunting masterpiece centred on two teenagers in a swimming pool, filmed in a London buzzing with excitement, the London of the Swinging Sixties.
Whilst still in England, he directed The Shout (1978), a fantastical, unclassifiable and fascinating film, which won the Grand Prix du Jury at Cannes, followed by Moonlighting, written and shot in just a few months following the imposition of martial law in Poland in December 1981 and presented at Cannes in May 1982! Its screenplay won awards and it was hailed as a truly great film. It stars Jeremy Irons as Nowak, a Polish labourer leading a small team working illegally in London whilst their country is living under curfew. Finally, he went to the United States, where he directed a superb suspense drama, The Lightship (1985), starring Robert Duvall, Klaus Maria Brandauer and Michael Lyndon, who also happens to be his own son.
After a seventeen-year hiatus in the 1990s, during which cinema screens were deprived of his films, Skolimowski made his big comeback with the opening film of the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes in 2008 with Four Nights with Anna. In 2010, he electrified audiences with Essential Killing, a breathless survival thriller in which Vincent Gallo, a terrorist on the run, fights for his life. Then, in 2022, in competition at Cannes, EO, a deeply moving fable told entirely through the eyes of a donkey, cemented his reputation amongst a new generation of audiences.
A leading figure in Polish cinema, Jerzy Skolimowski will be at Premiers Plans to present around ten of his feature films. A unique opportunity to discover or rediscover a great cinematic body of work, with many titles being shown in restored versions.
With thanks to Jerzy Skolimowski, Ewa Piaskowska, Potemkine, Mk2 and Malavida.
