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Jerzy Skolimowski
Jerzy Skolimowski
	Skolimowski at the 10th Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival in 2016
Born	5 May 1938 (age 86); Łódź, Poland
Alma mater	Łódź Film School
Occupation(s)	Filmmaker, director, screenwriter, actor, painter
Years active	1960–present
Spouses	; Elżbieta Czyżewska (m. 1958; div. 1965) ; Joanna Szczerbic (m. 1966; div. 2014) Ewa Piaskowska;
Children	2

Jerzy Skolimowski (Polish: [ˈjɛʐɨ skɔliˈmɔfskʲi]; born 5 May 1938) is a Polish film director, screenwriter, dramatist, actor and painter.^[2] Beginning as a screenwriter for Andrzej Wajda's Innocent Sorcerers (1960), Skolimowski has made more than twenty films since his directorial debut The Menacing Eye (1960). In 1967 he was awarded the Golden Bear prize for his Belgian film The Departure (1967). Among his other notable films is Deep End (1970), starring Jane Asher and John Moulder Brown.^[3]

He lived in Los Angeles for over 20 years where he painted in a figurative, expressionist mode and occasionally acted in films. He returned to Poland, and to filmmaking as a writer and director, after a 17-year hiatus with Four Nights with Anna (2008).

He received the Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement at the 2016 Venice Film Festival. His film EO (2022) was awarded the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards.

Early life

Skolimowski was born in Łódź, Poland, the son of Maria (née Postnikoff) and Stanisław Skolimowski, an architect.^[4] He often recognized indications in his work to a childhood ineradicably scarred by the war. As a small child he witnessed the brutalities of war, even having been rescued from the rubble of a bombed-out house in Warsaw. His father, a member of the Polish Resistance, was executed by the German occupiers Nazis. His mother hid a Polish Jewish family in the house and Skolimowski recalls being required to take candy from German soldiers to maintain appearances.^[5]

After the war, his mother became the cultural attaché of the Polish embassy in Prague. His fellow pupils at school in Poděbrady, a spa town near Prague, included future film-makers Miloš Forman and Ivan Passer, as well as Václav Havel.^[6]

Skolimowski was considered as a trouble maker at school as he was the origin of many pranks which angered the authorities. At college he studied ethnography, history and literature and took up boxing, which was also the subject of a feature-length documentary, his first significant film. Skolimowski's interest in jazz and association with composer Krzysztof Komeda brought him into contact with actor Zbigniew Cybulski and directors Andrzej Munk and Roman Polanski.^[7]

Writer and actor

In his early twenties Skolimowski was already a writer, having published several books of poems, short stories and a play. Soon Skolimowski met Andrzej Wajda, the leading director of the then dominant 'Polish school' and twelve years his senior, who showed him a script for a film about youth written by Jerzy Andrzejewski, the author of the novel Ashes and Diamonds. Skolimowski was not impressed and dismissed the script. However, in response to a challenge by Wajda, he produced his own version which became a basis for the finished film, Innocent Sorcerers (1960), directed by Wajda with Skolimowski playing a boxer.^[8]

Skolimowski enrolled in the Łódź Film School with the intention of avoiding the long apprenticeship required before graduating to feature film direction. He used the film stock available to him for student exercises, and with initial advice from Andrzej Munk, he filmed over several years in such a way that the sequences were later clipped off and joined together into one piece of work. While scoring poorly in course work Skolimowski had a finished feature film by the end of the course.

Into the movie arena

Skolimowski then collaborated with Polański, writing the dialogue for the script of Knife in the Water (1962).^[9]

Between 1964 and 1984 he completed six semi-autobiographical feature films: Rysopis, Walkover, Barrier (1966), Hands Up! (completed 1967, released 1981), Moonlighting (GB 1982) and Success Is the Best Revenge, a segment in Dialóg and two other features Le Départ (1967) and Deep End based on his original screenplays. Barrier won Grand Prix at Bergamo International Film Festival. Le Départ won the Golden Bear at the 17th Berlin International Film Festival.^[10]

While living and working in many countries, he also completed another six relatively big budget productions, including four international co-productions, between 1970 and 1992 (The Adventures of Gerard, King, Queen, Knave, The Shout, The Lightship, Torrents of Spring and Ferdydurke), all distinctly bearing Skolimowski’s signature.^[11]

Film as life

After Barrier he left Poland to make Le Départ in Belgium in French. According to him Le Départ was a light film rather than a comedy, stating that it "does not have the serious layers that I like in my work." ^{[citation needed]} Skolimowski returned to Poland to make Ręce do góry (Hands Up!), the third film of the Andrzej trilogy and the fourth of his Polish sextet. The anti-Stalinist themes of Hands Up! resulted in that film being banned and him being effectively expelled from then communist Poland.^[12] He then resettled in London, notably having Jimi Hendrix as a neighbor in the same building.^[13]

Between Hands Up! and his next feature, Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventures of Gerard (1970), Skolimowski contributed a story to a Czech-produced portmanteau film, Dialóg 20-40-60 (1968), in which three different directors (with Zbyněk Brynych and Peter Solan) each devised their own story using identical dialogue even though the central characters in each section are separated in age by twenty years. Skolimowski's segment, "The Twenty Year Olds", would seem to be an extension of Le Départ with Jean-Pierre Léaud playing opposite Skolimowski's wife Joanna Szczerbic.

Deep End (1970) was Skolimowski's second non-Polish feature to be based on his own original screenplay. The movie with a coming of age storyline bears distinctive thematic similarities to Le Départ. His films The Shout (1978) and Moonlighting (1982) became critical successes, with Moonlighting, made in the UK and starring Jeremy Irons, the fifth of his Polish sextet, being critically and commercially his most successful film.

In the United States

The Lightship, Skolimowski’s first US production, was adapted from a novella by the German writer Siegfried Lenz and starring Robert Duvall and Klaus Maria Brandauer. Set on a US Coast Guard ship it was filmed in the North Sea. It is suspended between psychological duel with a doppelgänger theme and a pure performance piece within the stage-like confines of the lightship. However, even though receiving the best film award at the Venice Film Festival, The Lightship had only a very limited release.

Torrents of Spring (1989), adapted from a semi-autobiographical novella by Russian author Ivan Turgenev, was a big budget European co-production starring Timothy Hutton, Nastassja Kinski and Valeria Golino. It could be considered as Skolimowski's most impersonal 'generic' film, the only real departure from his expressed interest in making films only to please himself.

Skolimowski is also an actor, having appearances as Colonel Chaikov, a ruthless yet composed KGB colonel, in White Nights (1985) and Uncle Stepan, a Russian expatriate in Eastern Promises (2007), among other roles. In 2012, he appeared in The Avengers, as a villain interrogating Black Widow.^[14]

Later career

In 2008, he directed his first film after his return from the US Cztery noce z Anną (Four Nights with Anna).

In 2010, he directed Essential Killing starring Vincent Gallo and Emmanuelle Seigner. The film won multiple awards including Special Jury Prize at the 67th Venice International Film Festival, Golden Ástor Award at the Mar del Plata International Film Festival and the Golden Lions Award for Best Film at the Gdynia Film Festival. In 2011, he became the recipient of the Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta and the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.^[15]

In 2015, he directed thriller film 11 Minutes starring Richard Dormer and Andrzej Chyra. It was selected as the Polish entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 88th Academy Awards.^[16]

In July 2016, at the Venice International Film Festival, Skolimowski was honoured with the Golden Lion for "lifetime achievement".^[17]

His film EO premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival where it won the Jury Prize. The Polish-Italian co-production is a contemporary interpretation of the 1966 drama film Au hasard Balthazar directed by Robert Bresson.^[18] Submitted by Poland, EO was nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards.^[19] In 2022, he co-wrote Roman Polański's drama film The Palace.^[20]

Filmography

Year	Original Title	English Title	Director	Writer	Producer	Actor	Notes
1960	Hamles	Little Hamlet	Yes	Yes	No	No
1960	Oko wykol	The Menacing Eye	Yes	Yes	No	No
1960	Erotyk	Erotique	Yes	Yes	No	No
1960	Niewinni czarodzieje	Innocent Sorcerers	No	Yes	No	Yes
1961	Boks	Boxing	Yes	Yes	No	No
1961	Pieniądze albo życie	Your Money or Your Life	Yes	Yes	No	No
1961	Rzeźba		Yes	Yes	No	No
1962	Nóż w wodzie	Knife in the Water	No	Yes	No	No
1962	Druga taryfa		Yes	Yes	Yes	No
1962	Akt^[21]	The Nude	Yes	Yes	No	No
1965	Rysopis	Identification Marks: None	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Also editor and art director
1965	Walkower	Walkover	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Also editor
1966	Sposób bycia		No	No	No	Yes
1966	Bariera	Barrier	Yes	Yes	No	No
1967	Le départ	The Departure	Yes	Yes	No	No
1968	Dialóg 20-40-60		Yes	Yes	No	No	Anthology film; segment: "The Twenty-Year-Olds"
1970	The Adventures of Gerard		Yes	Yes	No	No
1970	Deep End		Yes	Yes	No	Yes
1972	King, Queen, Knave		Yes	Yes	No	Yes
1972	Poślizg		No	Yes	No	Yes
1978	The Shout		Yes	Yes	No	No
1981	Ręce do góry	Hands Up!	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Filmed in 1967; also art director
1981	Die Fälschung	Circle of Deceit	No	No	No	Yes
1982	Moonlighting		Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
1984	Success Is the Best Revenge		Yes	Yes	Yes	No
1985	The Lightship		Yes	No	No	No
1985	White Nights		No	No	No	Yes
1987	Big Shots		No	No	No	Yes
1989	Torrents of Spring		Yes	Yes	No	Yes
1991	Ferdydurke	30 Door Key	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
1993	Motyw cienia	The Hollow Men	No	No	Yes	No
1996	Mars Attacks!		No	No	No	Yes
1998	L.A. Without a Map		No	No	No	Yes
2000	Before Night Falls		No	No	No	Yes
2007	Eastern Promises		No	No	No	Yes
2008	Cztery noce z Anna	Four Nights with Anna	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
2010	Essential Killing		Yes	Yes	Yes	No
2012	The Avengers		No	No	No	Yes
2012	Bitwa pod Wiedniem	The Day of the Siege: September Eleven 1683	No	No	No	Yes
2015	11 Minut	11 Minutes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
2018	Una storia senza nome	The Stolen Caravaggio	No	No	No	Yes
2018	Juliusz		No	No	No	Yes
2022	IO	EO	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
2023	The Palace		No	Yes	No	No
2023	Warszawianka		No	No	No	Yes	7 episodes

Awards

Year	Award	Category
1964	PWSFTviT	Best Director (Identification Marks: None)
1965	Arnhem Film Festival	Grand Prix: Best Director (Identification Marks: None and Walkover)
1965	PWSFTviT	Andrzej Munk Award (Walkover)
1965	Bergamo Film Festival	Grand Prix (Barrier)
1967	Berlin Film Festival	Golden Bear (Le départ)
1967	Berlin Film Festival	Critics' Prize (UNICRIT Award) (Le départ)
1968	Valladolid International Film Festival	Special Jury Prize (Barrier)
1978	Cannes Film Festival	Special Jury Prize (The Shout)
1981	Polish Film Festival	Journalists Award (Hands Up!)
1982	Deutscher Filmpreis	Best Supporting Actor (Circle of Deceit)
1982	Cannes Film Festival	Best Screenplay (Moonlighting)
1985	Venice Film Festival	Special Jury Prize (The Lightship)
2008	Tokyo Film Festival	Special Jury Prize (Four Nights with Anna)
2009	International Istanbul Film Festival	Lifetime Achievement Award
2009	Lato Filmów: Warsaw Film and Art Festival	Best screenplay in the history of Polish cinema (Knife in the Water)
2009	Polish Film Awards	Eagle: Best Director (Four Nights with Anna)
2010	Venice Film Festival	Special Jury Prize (Essential Killing)
2010	Venice Film Festival	CinemAvvenire Award: Best Film In Competition (Essential Killing)
2010	Mar del Plata Film Festival	Golden Astor: Best Film (Essential Killing)
2010	Mar del Plata Film Festival	ACCA Award: Best Film in the International Competition (Essential Killing)
2010	Camerimage	Lifetime Achievement Award
2010	Polish Film Awards	Eagle: Best Director (Essential Killing)
2010	Polish Film Awards	Eagle: Best Film (Essential Killing)
2011	Polish Film Festival	Best Director (Essential Killing)
2011	Polish Film Festival	Golden Lions: Best Film (Essential Killing)
2011	Sopot Film Festival	Grand Prix (Essential Killing)
2012	Belgian Film Critics Association	Grand Prix (Essential Killing)
2015	Motovun Film Festival	Maverick Award for Lifetime Achievement
2016	Venice Film Festival	Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement
2022	Cannes Film Festival	Jury Prize (EO)
2022	Valladolid International Film Festival	Best Director (EO)
2022	Los Angeles Film Critics Association	Best Foreign Language Film (EO)
2022	New York Film Critics Circle	Best Foreign Language Film (EO)
2022	Polish Film Awards	Eagle: Lifetime Achievement Award
2023	Polish Film Awards	Eagle: Best Film (EO)
2023	Polish Film Awards	Eagle: Best Director (EO)
2023	National Society of Film Critics	Best Foreign Language Film (EO)