Paweł Aleksander Pawlikowski (; born 15 September 1957) is a Polish filmmaker. He garnered early praise for a string of documentaries in the 1990s and for his award-winning feature films of the 2000s, ''
Last Resort'' (2000) and ''
My Summer of Love'' (2004). His success continued into the 2010s with ''
Ida'' (2013), which won the
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and ''
Cold War
The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
'' (2018), for which Pawlikowski won the
Best Director prize at the
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes Film Festival (; ), until 2003 called the International Film Festival ('), is the most prestigious film festival in the world.
Held in Cannes, France, it previews new films of all genres, including documentaries, from all around ...
and was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Director, while the film received a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.
Early life
Pawlikowski was born in
Warsaw
Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...
,
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
, to his father Wiktor, who was a doctor and Zula, his mother, who started as a ballet dancer and later became an English literature professor at the
University of Warsaw.
In his late teens, he learned that his paternal grandmother was
Jewish
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
and had been murdered in
Auschwitz.
At the age of 14, he left communist Poland with his mother for London. What he thought was a holiday turned out to be a permanent exile. A year later he moved to Germany, before finally settling in Britain in 1977. He studied literature and philosophy at
Oxford University.
Career
20th century: Early works
In the late 1980s and 1990s, Pawlikowski was best known for his documentaries, whose blend of lyricism and irony won him many fans and awards around the world. ''From Moscow to Pietushki'' was a poetic journey into the world of the Russian cult writer
Venedikt Erofeev, for which he won an
Emmy, an
RTS award, a
Prix Italia
The Prix Italia is an international television, radio-broadcasting and web award. It was established in 1948 by RAI – Radiotelevisione Italiana (in 1948, RAI had the denomination RAI – Radio Audizioni Italiane) in Capri and is honoured with th ...
and other awards. The multi-award-winning ''Dostoevsky's Travels'' was a tragi-comic road movie in which a St Petersburg tram driver and the only living descendant of
Fyodor Dostoevsky, travels rough around Western Europe haunting high-minded humanists, aristocrats, monarchists and the
Baden-Baden casino in his quest to raise money to buy a secondhand Mercedes.
Pawlikowski's most original and formally successful film was ''Serbian Epics'' (1992), made at the height of the Bosnian War. The oblique, ironic, imagistic, at times almost hypnotic study of epic Serbian poetry, with exclusive footage of
Radovan Karadžić and General
Ratko Mladić, aroused a storm of controversy and incomprehension at the time, but has now secured it something of a cult status. The absurdist ''Tripping with Zhirinovsky'', a surreal boat journey down the
Volga with controversial Russian politician
Vladimir Zhirinovsky
Vladimir Volfovich Zhirinovsky (, , né Eidelstein, ; 25 April 1946 – 6 April 2022) was a Russian right-wing populist politician and the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) from its creation in 1992 until his death in 20 ...
, won Pawlikowski the
Grierson Award for the Best British Documentary in 1995. Pawlikowski's transition to fiction occurred in 1998 with a small 50-minute hybrid film ''Twockers'', a lyrical and gritty love story set on a sink estate in Yorkshire, which he co-wrote and co-directed with
Ian Duncan.
2000s
In 2000 he wrote and directed ''
Last Resort'' starring
Dina Korzun and
Paddy Considine
Patrick George Considine (born 5 September 1973) is an English actor, director, screenwriter and musician. He is known for playing antiheros in independent films. He has received two British Academy Film Awards, three Evening Standard British ...
, which won a BAFTA, the Michael Powell Award for Best British Film at Edinburgh and many other awards. In 2004 he wrote and directed ''
My Summer of Love'' starring
Emily Blunt and
Natalie Press, which won a BAFTA, the Michael Powell Award for Best British Film and many other awards.
In 2006, he filmed about 60% of his adaptation of Magnus Mills' ''
The Restraint of Beasts'' when the project was halted—his wife had fallen gravely ill and he left to care for her and their children.
2010s
In 2011, he wrote and directed a film loosely adapted from Douglas Kennedy's novel ''
The Woman in the Fifth'', starring
Ethan Hawke and
Kristin Scott Thomas.
On 19 October 2013, his film ''
Ida'' (starring
Agata Kulesza) won the Best Film Award at the
London Film Festival, on the same night that
Anthony Chen, one of his students at the
National Film and Television School, won the
Sutherland Prize for the Best First Film, for ''
Ilo Ilo''. ''Ida'' won the 2015 Academy Award for Foreign Language Film on 23 February 2015, the first Polish film to do so. In the same year, he was a member of the jury headed by
Alfonso Cuarón at the
72nd Venice International Film Festival.
In 2017, Pawlikowski adapted
Emmanuel Carrère's biographical novel ''
Limonov'' (2011), based on the life of
Eduard Limonov, into a screenplay. Pawlikowski planned to direct the film adaptation but revealed in 2020 that he lost interest in the character and abandoned plans to direct.
His most recent film, ''
Cold War
The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
'' earned him the
Best Director Award at the
2018 Cannes Film Festival. It also won five awards at the
2018 European Film Awards including Best Film, Best Director and Best Actress Awards. In 2019, he was announced as one of the members of the jury at the
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes Film Festival (; ), until 2003 called the International Film Festival ('), is the most prestigious film festival in the world.
Held in Cannes, France, it previews new films of all genres, including documentaries, from all around ...
.
2020s
In October 2022, reports emerged that Pawlikowski's next film, under the working title ''The Island'', was scheduled to begin filming in 2023. The film is inspired by true events and cast
Joaquin Phoenix and
Rooney Mara as an American couple in the 1930s, who leave behind civilization to live on a deserted island.
In May 2023, production for ''The Island'' was halted, weeks before filming was set to begin, as a result of the impending
2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. In December 2023, cinematographer
Łukasz Żal stated that the project was unlikely to ever be made. In February 2024, Mara stated that herself, Phoenix, and Pawlikowski are still committed to make the film, but was unsure of when it may be filmed.
Personal life
Pawlikowski grew up a Catholic and considers himself one up to this day, but says that he finds the Catholic Church in Great Britain to be easier to grow in faith in than that in Poland.
Pawlikowski was a Creative Arts Fellow at
Oxford Brookes University from 2004 to 2007. He teaches film direction and screenwriting at the National Film School in the UK and the Wajda Film School in Warsaw. In addition to his native Polish, he speaks six languages including German and Russian.
Pawlikowski's first wife, who was Russian, developed a serious illness in 2006 and died several months later.
They have a son and a daughter. After his children left for university, Pawlikowski moved to Paris, and later relocated to Warsaw, where he lives close to his childhood home.
At the end of 2017, he married Polish model and actress
Małgosia Bela.
Filmography
Film
Documentary works
Television
1987
'' Stasys ''
Film
-
Awards and nominations
Academy Awards
British Academy Film Awards
Golden Globe Awards
European Film Awards
Polish Film Awards
British Independent Film Awards
Film festivals and other award ceremonies
Critics' Circle
Other distinctions
Pawlikowski was made Honorary Associate of
London Film School. In 2019, he was awarded the title of an
honorary citizen of
Warsaw
Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...
.
See also
*
Cinema of Poland
*
List of Poles
*
List of Polish Academy Award winners and nominees
References
External links
*
BBC Interview 2004Pawel Pawlikowski's websitePaweł Pawlikowskiat Culture.pl
Interview with Terry Grosson NPR's
Fresh Air, 12 February 2015
Paweł Pawlikowski and his TV movie documentaries ''From Moscow to Pietushki'', ''Dostoevsky’s Travels'', ''Serbian Epics'' and ''Tripping with Zhirinovski'' on vimeo
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pawlikowski, Pawel
1957 births
Living people
Film people from Warsaw
Polish film directors
Polish television directors
Academics of Oxford Brookes University
British film directors
British television directors
Polish emigrants to the United Kingdom
Polish people of Jewish descent
Polish Roman Catholics
Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Director winners
Directors of Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award winners
European Film Award for Best Director winners
European Film Award for Best Screenwriter winners
Filmmakers who won the Best Foreign Language Film BAFTA Award
Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer BAFTA Award winners