Director Jan P. Matuszyński, Chairman of the FPFF Program Council, comments on the choice of the laureate: “Wojciech Marczewski is one of the unquestionable pillars of Polish cinema. His films still shine with their universality and relevance. The FPFF Program Council was happy to select him as the laureate of this year’s Platinum Lions for lifetime achievement, without further discussion. Not only because of his achievements in film, but also his enormous contribution to the education of successive generations of creators in Poland and around the world. Mr. Marczewski’s achievements beautifully combine the history and the future of Polish cinema. I am glad that he joins the distinguished group of laureates of this exceptional award.”
The Festival has prepared three events with the participation of Wojciech Marczewski. The first will be a screening of the film “Escape from the ‘Freedom’ Cinema”, a canonical work of the director, awarded the Golden Lions at the festival in 1990.
The second event will be a masterclass by Wojciech Marczewski, which will be led by film expert Piotr Pławuszewski. This meeting will be an attempt to answer the question of what it means to be a filmmaker. One who leaves an indelible mark on the viewer with his works. Talking about “Klucznik”, “Dreszcze”, “Ucieczka z kina “‘Wolność” or “Weiser”, the interlocutors will consider what makes Marczewski’s cinema a vehicle of memory and history and how the director looks at his extraordinary achievements from a temporal distance. This masterclass in cinema will remind us that Wojciech Marczewski’s work is always a starting point for a serious conversation. Because only for this – the director seems to claim – is it worth turning on the camera.
Wojciech Marczewski is also taking part in the “Master Five” section. The director chose Andrzej Wajda’s “The Maids of Wilko” because, as he says, “it is one of those films that, uninvited, force their way into our memory and rummage through it stubbornly.” He will talk about the film, about what was behind the choice of this particular title, what kind of viewer he is and how his film world was shaped, with film expert Anita Skwara.
Wojciech Marczewski is a film and television director, screenwriter, producer, valued teacher, lecturer at film schools in London, Berlin, Copenhagen, Łódź, Warsaw and Katowice, and an undisputed authority in the Polish film community. He is the winner of the Golden Lions for the film “Ucieczka z kina ‘Wolność'” (1990) and Silver Lions for the films “Shivers” (1981) and “Nightmares” (1979), as well as the Special Jury Prize for the film “Czas betrayy” (1997). He was distinguished in Berlin with the Silver Bear and the FIPRESCI Prize for “Shivers”.
Wojciech Marczewski’s oeuvre, quantitatively small, consisting of just four feature films, five television films, several short films and one series, is striking in the scope of the topics undertaken, the directorial consistency and the scale of artistic challenges. Wojciech Marczewski’s cinema looks at the condition of the 20th century man in its most dramatic points, marked by history, ideology and the spirit of the times. However, these are always intimate, delicate stories, moving in depth and expressiveness, impressionistic images created from metaphors, fantasies and memories.