Agnieszka Holland

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Agnieszka Holland
Holland Agnieszka.JPG
Agnieszka Holland, 25 September 2011
Born (1948-11-28) 28 November 1948 (age 64)
Warsaw, Poland
Occupation Film director and screenwriter
Spouse(s) Laco Adamik (?-?; divorced; 1 child)

Agnieszka Holland (born 28 November 1948) is a Polish film and TV director and screenwriter. Best recognized for her highly political contributions to Polish cinema, Holland is one of Poland's most prominent filmmakers and a Hollywood outsider. Not only is she considered to be one of the few female directors working in Hollywood today, she is one of the few who are not actresses or industry insiders.

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Personal life [edit]

Holland was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1948. She is the daughter of two prominent journalists, Irena (née Rybczyńska) and Henryk Holland,[1] a Catholic mother and a Jewish father. Her father Henryk Holland was a member of the Communist Party of Poland, fought in the Red Army, after the war returning to Poland to write press articles in which he attacked the Home Army.[2] Holland herself was raised without religion. Her father’s parents were killed in the ghetto; her mother participated in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising and was a member of the Polish Underground.

Her father died under mysterious circumstances during a police interrogation when Holland was only thirteen years old. Although the official reports labeled her father’s death a suicide, many believe he was murdered, pushed from a window to his death. Holland’s mother later remarried to journalist Stanislaw Brodzki.[3]

Holland was a sickly child, and spent much of her time writing, drawing and directing short plays with other children.[4]

Holland attended Gimnazjum i Liceum im. Stefana Batorego (Warsaw, Poland). Although not Jewish herself, Holland found herself marked by her Jewish heritage, mixed ancestry and family’s political past. After high school, Holland decided to study at the Prague Film Academy where she was one of 220 applicants ultimately accepted. As she said in an interview, she went to study in Prague because she thought that Czechoslovak films of the 1960s were very interesting: "I watched first films of Milos Forman, Ivan Passer, and Vera Chytilova. They seemed to be fantastic to me, unlike what was made in Poland at that time".[5] She also met her future husband and fellow director, Laco Adamik, who still lives in Poland.

Holland witnessed the Prague Spring of 1968, a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia. She spent six weeks in prison for her support of government reforms.[6] She graduated from the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU) in 1971.[7]

Career [edit]

She began her career as an assistant director for the Polish film directors Krzysztof Zanussi and Andrzej Wajda, including Zanussi's 1973 film Iluminacja ("Illumination") and Wajda's 1982 film Danton. She served as First Assistant Director on Wajda’s Man of Marble (1977), an experience which supplied her with the capability to explore political and moral issues within the confines of an oppressive regime.[8]

Holland's first major film was Aktorzy Prowincjonalni ("Provincial actors", 1978), a chronicle of tense backstage relations within a small-town theater company that served as an allegory for Poland's contemporary political situation. The film won the International Critics Prize at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival.

Holland only directed two more major films in Poland, Fever (Gorączka, 1980) and Kobieta samotna ("A Lonely Woman", 1981), before emigrating to France, just before martial law was declared in Poland in December 1981. She was informed that she could not return to Poland, and as a result was not able to see or contact her daughter for over eight months.[9]

Fever was entered into the 31st Berlin International Film Festival.[10]

Knowing that she could not return to Poland, she attempted to recreate herself abroad, writing scripts for fellow exiled Polish filmmakers such as Wajda’s Danton (1982), A Love in Germany (1983), The Possessed (1988), and Korczak (1990). She also developed her own projects alongside Western European production companies, creating such films as Angry Harvest (1985), To Kill a Priest (1988) and Oliver, Oliver (1992).[11] Holland received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film for her Angry Harvest, a German production about a Jewish woman on the run in World War II.

Perhaps Holland's best-known and most well-regarded film is Europa Europa (1991), based on the biography of Solomon Perel, a Jewish teenager who fled Germany for Poland following Kristallnacht in 1938. Upon the outbreak of World War II and the German invasion of Poland, Perel fled to the Soviet-occupied section of Poland. Later captured during the German invasion of Russia in 1941, Solomon convinced a German officer that he was German and found himself enrolled in the Hitler Youth. The film received a lukewarm reception in Germany and the German Oscar selection committee did not include the film as a submission for the 1991 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. However, it caught the attention of Michael Barker, who was responsible for handling Orion Classics’ sales at the time. Europa, Europa was released in the United States to much praise and fanfare, winning a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.[12]

A friend of the noted Polish writer and director, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Holland collaborated on the screenplay for his film, Three Colors: Blue. Like Kieślowski, Holland frequently examines issues of faith in her work.

Much of her film work has a heavy political slant. Government reprisals, stifling bureaucratic machinery, sanctioned strikes and dysfunctional familial structures were all represented in her earlier work as a filmmaker.[13]

In a 1988 interview, she said that although women were important in her films, feminism was not the central theme of her work. Rather she suggested that when she was making films in Poland under the communist regime, there was an atmosphere of cross-gender solidarity against censorship, which was seen as the main political issue. She stated that she was interested in the happenings between people, not the politics occurring outside them, and under this context, “maybe you could say that all my movies are political.”[14]

Holland's later films include Olivier, Olivier (1992), The Secret Garden (1993), Total Eclipse (1995), Washington Square (1997), the HBO production Shot in the Heart (2001), Julie Walking Home (2001) and Copying Beethoven (2006).

In a 1997 interview, in response to how her life experiences as a director have influenced her films, Holland stated that “filmmakers of the younger generation lack life experience,” and, as a result, many of the tools needed to breath humanity into their respective characters. Compared to the directors of her generation, she feels that the younger generation comes from wealthy families, goes straight to film schools and watching movies mostly on videotapes. This has resulted in what she refers to as a “numbness” and “conventionalization” of today’s cinema.[15]

In 2003 she was a member of the jury at the 25th Moscow International Film Festival.[16]

In 2004 she directed "Moral Midgetry" the eighth episode of the third season of HBO drama series The Wire.[17][18][19] She returned in 2006 to direct the eighth episode of the fourth season "Corner Boys".[20][21][22] Both episodes were written by acclaimed novelist Richard Price. Show runner David Simon said that Holland was "wonderful behind the camera" and did an excellent job of staging the fight between Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell in "Moral Midgetry".[23]

In 2007 she directed, together with her sister Magdalena Łazarkiewicz and daughter Katarzyna Adamik, the Polish political drama series Ekipa.

On 5 February 2009 the Krakow Post reported that Holland will direct a biopic about Krystyna Skarbek entitled Christine: War My Love.[24]

Her 2011 film In Darkness has been selected as the Polish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 84th Academy Awards.[25] In January 2012, the film was named as one of the five nominees.[26]

Holland has accepted the offer to film a three-part drama for HBO about Jan Palach, who immolated himself in January 1969 to protest the "Normalization", which came after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. "Burning Bush" has been shown in Poland and Germany.[27]

She is currently on the faculty as filmmaker-in-residence at Brooklyn College, City University of New York.

Filmography [edit]

Further reading [edit]

References [edit]

  1. ^ Agnieszka Holland Biography (1948-)
  2. ^ Stalinięta straszą, by powrócić – Stanisław Michalkiewicz, 2010-06-25 "Jak wiadomo, terror był wówczas zjawiskiem codziennym, a towarzyszyła mu oszczercza, czarna propaganda, w której – tak się akurat złożyło – specjalizował się ojciec pani Agnieszki, Henryk Holland. Zasłynął on bowiem podówczas z publikacji szkalujących Armię Krajową i jej żołnierzy, którzy – jeśli nie zostali zamordowani, to właśnie gnili w więzieniach."
  3. ^ Crnković, Gordana and Holland, Agnieszka. “Interview with Agnieszka Holland.” Film Quarterly. Vol. 52, No 2 (Winter, 1998-1999), pp. 2-9. Print.
  4. ^ Tibbets, John and Holland, Agnieszka. “The Interview with Agnieszka Holland: The Politics of Ambiguity.” Quarterly Review of Film and Video. 25:2, pp. 132-143. Print.
  5. ^ Na czeskiej fali, Agnieszka Holland - wywiad retrieved March 9, 2013
  6. ^ Crnković, Gordana and Holland, Agnieszka. “Interview with Agnieszka Holland.” Film Quarterly. Vol. 52, No 2 (Winter, 1998-1999), pp. 2-9. Print.
  7. ^ Crnković, Gordana and Holland, Agnieszka. “Interview with Agnieszka Holland.” Film Quarterly. Vol. 52, No 2 (Winter, 1998-1999), pp. 2-9. Print.
  8. ^ Tibbets, John and Holland, Agnieszka. “The Interview with Agnieszka Holland: The Politics of Ambiguity.” Quarterly Review of Film and Video. 25:2, pp. 132-143. Print.
  9. ^ Crnković, Gordana and Holland, Agnieszka. “Interview with Agnieszka Holland.” Film Quarterly. Vol. 52, No 2 (Winter, 1998-1999), pp. 2-9. Print.
  10. ^ "Berlinale 1981: Prize Winners". berlinale.de. Retrieved 2010-08-29. 
  11. ^ Crnković, Gordana and Holland, Agnieszka. “Interview with Agnieszka Holland.” Film Quarterly. Vol. 52, No 2 (Winter, 1998-1999), pp. 2-9. Print.
  12. ^ Tibbets, John and Holland, Agnieszka. “The Interview with Agnieszka Holland: The Politics of Ambiguity.” Quarterly Review of Film and Video. 25:2, pp. 132-143. Print.
  13. ^ Tibbets, John and Holland, Agnieszka. “The Interview with Agnieszka Holland: The Politics of Ambiguity.” Quarterly Review of Film and Video. 25:2, pp. 132-143. Print.
  14. ^ Crnković, Gordana and Holland, Agnieszka. “Interview with Agnieszka Holland.” Film Quarterly. Vol. 52, No 2 (Winter, 1998-1999), pp. 2-9. Print.
  15. ^ Crnković, Gordana and Holland, Agnieszka. “Interview with Agnieszka Holland.” Film Quarterly. Vol. 52, No 2 (Winter, 1998-1999), pp. 2-9. Print.
  16. ^ "25th Moscow International Film Festival (2003)". MIFF. Retrieved 2013-04-01. 
  17. ^ a b Agnieszka Holland (2004-11-14). "Moral Midgetry". The Wire. Season 3. Episode 08. HBO.
  18. ^ a b "Episode guide - episode 33 Moral Midgetry". HBO. 2004. Retrieved 2006-08-09. 
  19. ^ "The Wire season 3 crew". HBO. 2007. Archived from the original on 12 October 2007. Retrieved 2007-10-14. 
  20. ^ a b Agnieszka Holland (2004-11-05). "Corner Boys". The Wire. Season 4. Episode 08. HBO.
  21. ^ a b "Episode guide - episode 45 Corner Boys". HBO. 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-09. 
  22. ^ "The Wire season 4 crew". HBO. 2007. Archived from the original on 12 October 2007. Retrieved 2007-10-14. 
  23. ^ Jim King (2003). "3rd Exclusive David Simon interview". The Wire at AOL. Retrieved 2007-11-05.  Page 5
  24. ^ Krakow Post re film to be made of Krystyna Skarbek / Christine Granville's life by A. Holland
  25. ^ "Poland to Submit Agnieszka Holland’s In Darkness for Oscars". indiewire.com. Retrieved 2011-08-22. 
  26. ^ "Oscars 2012: Nominees in full". BBC News. Retrieved 2012-01-24. 
  27. ^ "Beta Film Acquires Agnieszka Holland’s Burning Bush". 
  28. ^ Agnieszka Holland (2008-02-03). "React Quotes". The Wire. Season 5. Episode 5. HBO.
  29. ^ "The Wire episode guide - episode 55 React Quotes". HBO. 2008. Archived from the original on 5 February 2008. Retrieved 2008-02-05. 

External links [edit]

Films directed by Agnieszka Holland
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
Authority control
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