Jerzy Skolimowski

Jerzy Skolimowski
Jerzy Skolimowski, 2014
Born	(1938-05-05) 5 May 1938 (age 78) Łódź, Poland
Spouse(s)	Elżbieta Czyżewska (divorced)

Jerzy Skolimowski (Polish: [jɛʐɨ skɔliˈmɔfskʲi], born 5 May 1938) is a Polish film director, screenwriter, dramatist and actor. A graduate of the prestigious National Film School in Łódź, Skolimowski has directed more than twenty films since his 1960 début Oko wykol (The Menacing Eye). He lived in Los Angeles for over 20 years where he painted in a figurative, expressionist mode and acted occasionally in films. More recently, he returned to Poland, and to film making as a writer and director after a 17-year hiatus with Cztery noce z Anną (Four Nights with Anna) in 2008.

Skolimowski was born in Łódź, Poland, the son of Maria (née Postnikoff) and Stanisław Skolimowski, an architect. He often recognized indications in his work to a childhood ineradicably scarred by the War. As a small child he witnessed the brutalities of war, even having been rescued from the rubble of a bombed-out house in Warsaw. His father, a member of the Polish Resistance, was executed by the Nazis. His mother hid a Jewish family in the house and Skolimowski recalls being required to take candy from the Nazis to maintain appearances.

After the war, his mother became the cultural attaché of the Polish embassy in Prague. His fellow pupils at school in Poděbrady, a spa town near Prague, included future film-makers Miloš Forman and Ivan Passer, as well as Václav Havel.

Skolimowski was considered as a trouble maker at school as he was the origin of many pranks which angered the authorities. At college he studied ethnography, history and literature and took up boxing, which was also the subject of a feature-length documentary, his first significant film. Skolimowski's interest in jazz and association with composer Krzysztof Komeda brought him into contact with actor Zbigniew Cybulski and directors Andrzej Munk and Roman Polanski.