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Andrzej Wajda

Andrzej Wajda
Andrzej Wajda OFF Plus Camera 2012 (cropped).jpg
Wajda in 2012
Born Andrzej Witold Wajda
(1926-03-06)6 March 1926
Suwałki, Second Polish Republic
Died 9 October 2016(2016-10-09) (aged 90)
Warsaw, Poland
Cause of death Pulmonary failure
Alma mater National Film School in Łódź
Occupation Film director, producer, screenwriter
Years active 1951–2016
Spouse(s)
Awards

Andrzej Witold Wajda (Polish: [ˈandʐɛj ˈvajda]; 6 March 1926 – 9 October 2016) was a Polish film and theatre director. Recipient of an Honorary Oscar and the Palme d'Or, he was a prominent member of the "Polish Film School". He was known especially for his trilogy of war films consisting of A Generation (1954), Kanał (1956) and Ashes and Diamonds (1958).

Four of his films have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film: The Promised Land (1975),The Maids of Wilko (1979),Man of Iron (1981) and Katyń (2007).

Wajda was born in Suwałki, Poland, the son of Aniela (née Białowąs), a school teacher, and Jakub Wajda, an army officer. Wajda's father was murdered by the Soviets in 1940 in what came to be known as the Katyn massacre. In 1942 he joined the Polish resistance and served in the Home Army. After the war, he studied to be a painter at Kraków's Academy of Fine Arts before entering the Łódź Film School.

After Wajda's apprenticeship to director Aleksander Ford, Wajda was given the opportunity to direct his own film. A Generation (1955) was his first major film. At the same time Wajda began his work as a director in theatre, including such as Michael V. Gazzo's A Hatful of Rain (1959), Hamlet (1960), and Two for the Seesaw (1963) by William Gibson. Wajda made two more increasingly accomplished films, which developed further the anti-war theme of A Generation: Kanał (1956) (Special Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival in 1957, shared with Bergman's The Seventh Seal) and Ashes and Diamonds (1958) with Zbigniew Cybulski.


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