Series Site
December 7–16
Co-presented with the Polish Cultural Institute in New York
Since making his first film nearly 30 years ago, Academy Award–winning director Pawel Pawlikowski has established himself as one of the most accomplished and adventurous filmmakers working today. Born in Warsaw, Poland, he emigrated to England as a teenager, and made his first films there—documentaries with peripatetic themes and titles (From Moscow to Pietushki: A Journey with Benedict Yerofeyev, Dostoevsky's Travels) that hinted at greater movements to come. An evolution into hybrid films saw him transition away from documentaries and toward vivid dramas that were nevertheless rooted in real experience. From early 21st century gems Last Resort and My Summer of Love through his return to Poland for the internationally celebrated Ida (Winner Best Foreign Language Film at the 2014 Academy Awards) and his newest film, Cold War, Pawlikowski has centered his work around complex female characters, and introduced the world to actresses such as Emily Blunt, Natalie Press, Dina Korzun, and Joanna Kulig. Though singular and individually inhabited, each of these stories suggest both universal experience as well the ongoing personal preoccupations of a filmmaker reckoning with the dislocations, traumas, discoveries, and ecstasies of lives both authored and inherited. This series represents the most extensive retrospective of Pawlikowski’s work to date, and is presented in anticipation of the theatrical release of Cold War, which opens on December 21 at Film Forum and The Film Society of New York.
Presented with support from Amazon Studios.
Special thanks to Tomek Smolarski, Polish Cultural Institute New York.