Guests

Jan Kidawa-Błoński belongs to the most 
acclaimed Polish directors of the middle 
generation. He first studied architecture 
before graduating from the Łódź Film 
School in 1980. His debut feature Three 
feet above the ground won several awards 
at regional festivals. His greatest success 
so far Destined for Blues (Skazany na bluesa), 
a moving portrait of the leader of Polish 
rock band Dżem, won the Audience Award 
at the 2005 Polish Film Festival in Gdynia. 
His latest film Little Rose (Różyczka), which 
we are proud to present to the Luxemburgish 
public, was an even greater success and 
won the main award "Golden Lions" at the 
2010 Polish Film Festival in Gdynia.

Włodzimierz Niderhaus is one of the most important 
Polish producers - he has produced or co-produced 
more than 50 feature films, including The Garden 
of Earthly Delights, Reverse and Little Rose which was 
awarded the "Golden Lions" for Best Polish Feature. 
He was also the director of the biggest Polish Film 
Studio WFDiF for many years.

Born in 1968, Konstantin Bojanov took a long time 
becoming a young filmmaker and signing his first 
feature film, Avé. After studying cinema and sculpture 
in Bulgaria, then in the Royal College of Art in 
London, he made a name for himself as a modern 
artist. His settings have been exposed in Zurich, 
Shanghai, Sofia, Plovdiv and Los Angeles. In 2001, 
Bojanov made his directorial debut with the short 
film Lemon Is Lemon. His first documentary, Invisible 
(2005), brings him back to Bulgaria where he 
patiently and uncompromisingly follows the life 
of six heroin addicts. His first feature Avé (2011) 
is a road trip film featuring two teenagers and their 
burgeoning relationship. Bojanov's last exhibition 
in Los Angeles in 2010 was called "Fears, Obsessions 
and Dedications": Avé is a little bit of all this and 
a lot of dedication for the subtly cracked characters.

Lech Majewski is a Polish-American director, 
screenwriter, producer, painter and poet. He 
is the author of a dozen films, three operas 
and five plays.  Among his most remarkable 
film projects are: Basquiat, Wojaczek, The 
Garden of Earthly Delights and The Mill and 
the Cross. In 2006, the MoMA hosted a complete 
(until then) retrospective of Majewski's work. 
This was their first ever full retrospective 
of a Polish filmmaker, and one of their 
only ever mid-career retrospectives. He is 
a member of the European Film Academy.

Dorota Lis is an actress and assistant director. She 
appeared in several Majewski's films (Glass Lips, 
Angelus, Garden of Earthly Delights) and assisted 
him as 2nd director.

Dagmara Drzazga is a television journalist and 
author of numerous documentaries presented 
at international festivals. For her film Lech 
Majewski. The world according to Bruegel she 
won the prestigious Prix Italia for ‘Best 
Documentary' in 2010.

Helena Třeštíková (born 1949 in Prague) 
graduated from FAMU, with a degree in 
documentary film direction. Since 1974, 
she has worked in professional production, 
having made over fifty documentary films, 
mostly on the themes of human relationships 
and social problems. Over the course of time, 
she has become specialised in the time-lapse 
method, following people's life stories on 
a long-term basis. For her film René, screened 
at CinEast 2009, she was awarded the Prix 
Arte 2008 by the European Film Academy 
(EFA) in the documentary category.

Ágnes Kocsis (born in Budapest in 1971) majored in Polish 
language and literature, aesthetics, and film theory at 
Eötvös Lóránd University. She later received a degree in film 
direction from the University of Theater and Film in Budapest 
and continued studying directing and scriptwriting in Rome. 
One of her short films, The Virus, won third prize of the Ciné-
fondation at the 59th Cannes Film Festival, and Fresh Air, 
her first feature film (2006), was presented at the Inter-
national Critics' Week section of the same edition of the 
Cannes festival. Fresh Air has played at more than 80 
international film festivals to date, winning 14 prizes. 
Adrienn Pál, her second feature film, premiered in the Un 
Certain Regard section at Cannes and was awarded the 
FIPRESCI Prize in May 2010. She is now working on her third 
feature Eden.

Florin Șerban was born in Reșița, Romania in 1975.
After concluding his degree in Philosophy in 1998
he entered the Romanian Film School in Bucharest.
During this time he wrote and directed short films,
commercials, tv shows and videoclips. 
After finishing his studies in Bucharest, Florin 
Șerban was accepted at Columbia University, New 
York, for a Master Degree in Film Directing and 
moved to the US. During his stay he also taught 
Film Theory at Columbia University and started 
working on his first feature film. If I Want to 
Whistle, I Whistle, his debut feature, won Silver 
Bear - Grand Jury Prize and Alfred Bauer prize 
for innovation in cinema at Berlinale in 2010, 
together with over 20 distinctions at various 
festivals around the world.

Antonín J. Liehm (born 1924 in Prague) is 
a journalist, a film critic, a film historian 
and a founder of the intellectual journal 
Lettre Internationale, published in Paris 
where he now resides. Before emigrating to 
the USA after the Soviet-led invasion in 1968, 
he was a member of the editorial board of 
Literární noviny, the most influential literary 
journal in Czechoslovakia. His impressive 
insight into Miloš Forman's work makes him 
an obvious choice for a debate on Forman´s 
mini-retrospective in the frame of CinEast 2011.

Marcin Koszałka is one of the most talented 
Polish directors of photography and of documentary 
films of the young generation. As a director of 
photography he has worked with many renowned 
filmmakers and has twice received the most 
prestigious Polish award for photography at 
the Gdynia Festival. As a director he has shot 
a dozen short documentary films, several of 
which were presented and received awards at 
major international festivals (Such a nice son I 
gave birth to, Till it hurts, Declaration of immortality). 
The last of these won the main award for short 
documentary at Karlove Vary IFF (2011) and a 
Diploma of Merit at the Tampere Short Film Festival.

Agnieszka Holland is one of Poland's most prominent 
film directors and screenwriters. After graduating 
from Prague Film School (FAMU) in 1971, she 
started her film career as an assistant of Krzysztof 
Zanussi and Andrzej Wajda, and gained notoriety 
as part of the "Polish New Wave". She collaborated 
on many scripts, including Wajda's Danton (1982), 
Korczak (1990) and Kieslowski's Trois couleurs. Bleu 
(1993). Her 1978 feature debute Provincial Actors, 
won the FIPRESCI prize at Cannes. Angry Harvest 
(1985), was nominated for an Academy Award and 
in 1991 Europa, Europa earned even greater inter-
national acclaim (Oscar nomination, Golden Globe). 
Other successes followed. The Secret Garden (1993), 
Total Eclipse (1995), Washington Square (1997), and 
Julie Walking Home (2001). Since 1981 she has 
lived and worked mostly in the United States and 
Western Europe, although she frequently collaborates 
with Polish filmmakers and actors. She is a member 
of the European Film Academy.