The Golden Angel for Artistic Insolence goes to Jerzy Skolimowski!
During this year’s Opening Ceremony of the Tofifest International Film Festival. Kujawy Pomorze Region, the Award for Artistic Insolence is going to be presented to Jerzy Skolimowski, a great master of cinema of international renown, an outstanding film director, screenwriter, actor, producer, poet and painter, and a nominee for Academy Awards. Our audience will have a chance to watch a retrospective of the films directed by this great artist, during this edition of the festival. We are going to show you a selection six films out of his impressive and brilliant portfolio.
Jerzy Skolimowski is an undisputed master of Polish and international cinema. His film work has been engraved in letters of gold in the history of cinema, and with each successive of his films, we can rest assured it will be an extraordinary experience with a lot of food for thought. It is my great honour that we will have an opportunity to give him the Golden Angel Award for Artistic Insolence at this year’s edition of the festival. He is an artist who always invites his audience to a one-of-a-kind film journey into the world we live in and into himself, says Kafka Jaworska, director of the Tofifest IFF. Kujawy Pomorze Region.
Jerzy Skolimowski was born on 5th May, 1938, in Łódź. In 1963, he graduated from the Directing Department at the Leon Schiller National Film School in Łódź. While studying, he directed a number of short films, for example ‘Oko wykol / The Menacing Eye’ (1960), ‘Hamleś / Little Hamlet’ (1960), ‘Rzeźba’ (1961), ‘Pieniądze albo życie / Your Money or Your Life’ (1961), or ‘Erotyk / Erotique’ (1961), which feature appearances by Gustaw Holoubek, Elżbieta Czyżewska, or Stanisław Dygat. Still during studies, he started working with Andrzej Wajda and Roman Polański, and participated in writing the script for the film ‘Niewinni czarodzieje / Innocent Sorcerers’ (1960), and one year later for ‘Nóż w wodzie / Knife in the Water’ (1961).
Jerzy Skolimowski’s directing feature début was ‘Rysopis / Identification Marks: None’ made in 1964, for which he also wrote the script. In it, he also played the main protagonist Andrzej Leszczyc. In the two of his successive films, namely ‘Walkower / Walkover’ (1965) and ‘Ręce do góry / Hands Up!’ (1967), you can see what happened next in the life of Andrzej Leszczyc. This film trilogy received many awards at prestigious film festivals, for example the Grand Prix Prize at the Arnhem Film Festival or the Andrzej Munk Award. His great international success came with the French-speaking film ‘Start / The Departure’ (1967), which won the Golden Bear Award for the Best Film and the Unicrit Award of the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) at the Berlin International Film Festival. In 1978, he directed the film ‘Wrzask / The Shout’ in Great Britain, which received the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes International Film Festival. Four years later, Jerzy Skolimowski received another French award - that time it was the Jury Award for the script to the film ‘Fucha / Moonlighting’ (1982). In 1985, he made the film ‘The Lightship’, which won the Grand Special Jury Prize at the Venice International Film Festival. In 2008, he released ‘Cztery noce z Anną / Four Nights with Anna’, which received the Polish Film Award (the Eagle) for the Best Directing and the Best Cinematography, a Honorary Mention of the Jury, the Polish Film Abroad Festivals and Reviews Award, the Award for Sound Engineering and the Award for Stage Design at the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia, and the Special Jury Prize at the Tokyo International Film Festival. His successive film ‘Essential Killing’ from 2010 was applauded all around the world, and won many awards, for example the Special Jury Prize and the Coppa Volpi Award for Best Actor at the Venice International Film Festival, and the Eagle Polish Film Awards for Best Film, Best Director, Best Music, and Best Editing. The film was also the winner of the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia, where it received the Golden Lion Award and awards for directing, cinematography, music, and editing. For the film ‘11 minut / 11 Minutes’ from 2015, Jerzy Skolimowski received a special mention from the Young Jury in Venice. His latest film ‘IO / EO’ (2022) was nominated for Academy Awards in the Best International Feature Film category, and also received the Jury Prize at the Venice International Film Festival and the Eagle Polish Film Award for the Best Film, Best Directing, Best Script, Best Cinematography, Best Music, and Best Editing.
Included in the section:
- Rysopis / Identification Marks: None, Poland, 1964, 71’
- Walkower / Walkover, Poland, 1965, 70’
- Ręce do góry! / Hands Up!, Poland, 1967, 76’
- Na samym dnie / Deep End, West Germany, USA, 1970, 88’
- Wrzask / The Shout, Great Britain, 1978, 83’
- IO EO, Poland, Italy, 2022, 88’
