Andrzej Wajda

Andrzej Wajda studied at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts after the war and then at the National Film School in Łódź (1949–54). His film career began in the mid-1950s and lasted until his death, with over 50 films shot over the course of six decades.

His work, with its selection of weighty themes and moral ethos, became a model for multiple filmmakers and a shining lodestar of Polish and world cinema. Among the topics to which he often returned, war and Polish history rank high and, later, the epoch of communist totalitarianism. His emotive and symbolic cinema earned him numerous prestigious awards, and in 2000 Wajda himself received an Academy Honorary Award for his lifetime of work.

MFF Karlovy Vary