Film director, cinematographer, screenwriter and prose writer; born in the city of Wrocław in 1956.

As a youth, Jan Jakub Kolski held a menial job at the state film studio in Wrocław and spent the years between 1977 and 1981 working as an assistant cameraman at the Wrocław regional branch of Polish State Television. In 1985 he graduated from the Cinematography Department of the State Higher School of Film, Television and Theatre in Łódź. Though cinematography was not his first interest, Kolski focused on this art form after failing the entrance exams for the directing program at the Łódź Film School several times. After obtaining a degree in cinematography, he went on to make numerous short films and documentaries, films about art and educational films. He also made a number of nature films, most of them focusing on cave exploration and mountain climbing.

He debuted as a director of feature films in 1990 with the intriguing "Pogrzeb kartofla / The Burial of the Potato". Since then, Kolski has almost exclusively made full-length features and in the process has come to be considered one of Poland's most original filmmakers. His "Jańcio Wodnik / Johnnie Aquarius" of 1993 proved a spectacular success.

Jan Jakub Kolski also occasionally makes documentaries.

He has proven himself an extraordinarily well-rounded artist, composing and authoring nearly all of the songs that have featured in his films and publishing a number of novels and short story collections. The latter have included "Jańcio Wodnik i inne opowiadania" / "Johnnie Aquarius and Other Stories," "Kulka z chleba" / "The Bread Ball," "Mikroswiaty: opowiadania" / "Microworlds: Stories" and "Jadzia i małoludki" / "Jadzia and the Little Men." Kolski later adapted some of these for the screen. In 1999 the director moved from Wroclaw to the city of Łódź, where he founded the Agencja Reklamy i Filmu Kolski & Partners (Kolski & Partners Film and Advertising Agency), a production company that was spun off of the UNI-FILM publishing and advertising firm.

Jan Jakub Kolski has been a member of the European Film Academy since the year 2000. He has received many distinctions for his film work, including a Special Jury Prize for "Johnnie Aquarius" at the Festiwal Polskich Filmów Fabularnych / Festival of Polish Feature Films held in Gdynia in 1993, and a "Polityka" weekly Passport Award for "cinematic originality and for rediscovering the charm of the Polish provinces." Kolski garnered the "Złote Lwy" / "Golden Lions" at the FPFF in Gdynia in 1998 for his "Historia kina w Popielawach / The History of the Cinema in Popielawy". In 1999 he received the Nagroda Kulturalna Śląska / Silesian Cultural Award for lifetime achievement and the Wielki FeFe / Great FeFe, a prize bestowed during the FeFe Felliniada Festival upon those who "insist on doing their own thing in cinema."

The central character from one of Kolski's most renowned films, the healer "Jańcio Wodnik (Johnnie Aquarius)", inspired a statuette of the same name that has for years been a coveted prize among filmmakers participating in the "Prowincjonalia" / "Provincionalia" Festivals, organized annually in the towns of Słupca and Września.

As a director of auteur films, Jan Jakub Kolski creates magical, surrealistic worlds that film critics and audiences refer to as "Jańcioland" / "Johnnieland" - a name that derives from one of Kolski's film heroes, but one that also clearly references the director's first name. Earlier, the artist had an altogether different moniker: he was called the "Polish short film stuntman," a nickname he acquired in making a series of short documentaries and quasi-documentaries that required exceptional physical ability from him and his crew. These films almost invariably focused on mountain climbing and speleology (e.g. "Najpiękniejsza jaskinia świata / The Most Beautiful Cave in the World") or survival schools (e.g. "Szkoła przetrwania / Survival School", "Pałkiewicz ma rację / Pałkiewicz is Right"). Kolski himself was an avid mountain climber and cave explorer for twelve years.

The director often underlines in interviews that though he always dreamed of making feature films, the experience he gained in making documentaries proved invaluable. While awaiting an opportunity to make his first feature, he acquired many skills and simultaneously spent a significant amount of time thinking about his path in life - all this while hardly avoiding extreme situations.

"Nothing can be compared to the perfect silence and darkness that reigns in caves", he once said in an interview. "The human body begins behaving differently under those conditions. The light that is lacking in the cave begins to burn beneath your ribs. You begin to radiate light from inside; there appears within you a brightness that illuminates your inner space. (...) Given the lack of any external light, in caves you have the chance to see who you really are. While I was a cave explorer I formulated my fundamental question about the meaning of life beyond caves; now, through my creative work, I seek an answer to that question" (Katarzyna Kubisiowska, "Przekrój" weekly, no. 25/1998)

Among Jan Jakub Kolski's short films, critics assign special significance to "Ładny dzień / A Nice Day", which tells the story of two elderly people who spend their time taking care of their old horse. This film is perceived as a harbinger of the unique sensitivity that would come to characterize the world which the director would create in his full-length features.

Kolski's feature films are considered by some to be part of the 'rural' current in cinema, but limiting their description to this term hardly reflects their most important aspect.

"His filmic countryside," wrote Grażyna Stachówna of Kolski's films, "combines the authentic landscapes of the Mazovian countryside with the sophisticated beauty of visual creativity, realistic stories with entirely imagined ones, literary and film inspirations with historical facts, miracles and magic with the director's talent and imagination."

This beautifully filmed reality is enriched by a magical world derived in equal amounts from the realms of religion and pagan lore. In this world,

"God is a good farmer who rules his little field, the Saints watch over the lives of people, while lamias and dwarves scurry around in the corners,"

we read in the same article ("Kino" monthly, no. 12/1998).

The protagonists of this world, born from a combination of the director's imagination and his camera skills, are often odd, imperfect people, or individuals who are condemned to being different. This is true of Kuśtyczka (Limpette) of "Pograbek", the dwarf Janka and the literally two-faced Morka of "Grający z talerza / The Man Who Read Music From Plates". Yet Kolski's characters are also different because they possess unusual talents and skills. The title character of "Jańcio Wodnik / Johnnie Aquarius", for instance, has the power to heal for a time, the main character of "Magneto" attracts metal objects, while Grazynka, a girl of ill repute in the film "Cudowne miejsce / A Miraculous Place", proves a stigmatic. Kolski is often asked why he deems this menagerie necessary and if he needs this collection of odd characters. In response, the director invariably speaks of his protagonists as he did in an interview with Jerzy Wójcik:

"I call them Children of God. Why? They are an oversensitive bunch, various 'scarecrows.' Their perception of daily life, life in general, is far more intense, involving every nerve. Their suffering is deeper as well. It is at them that the general aggression present in any environment is directed" ("Rzeczpospolita" daily, August 6, 1994).

Although the originality of Jan Jakub Kolski's film world is undeniable, his method can be seen as reflecting certain models or containing evidence of his fascinations. Critics agree that Kolski's stylistic inspirations derive from the 'Fantastic Realism' of Iberia and Latin America. As Grażyna Stachówna once noted, this literary style

"allows descriptions of the world to combine harmoniously the real and the true with the fantastic and miraculous."

Kolski, born in the mid 1950s, was a member of that generation of young Poles who in 1970s became enchanted with Iberian and Latin American literature. Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude" is the title most frequently cited in connection to Kolski's films, and the director has confirmed his admiration for the Columbian writer in numerous interviews. Of course, the world this Polish director creates is hardly a facsimile of Marquez's 'Macondo.' Kolski has pointed out that the source of his imagined world can be found much closer to home:

"I was a city child," he told Jerzy Wójcik, "but I wound up in the country, where I began living a rural life with my grandfather around the time I was in fourth grade. Everything was new and enchanting to me. My grandfather was a harness maker and all kinds of people would visit him. I listened to their stories. The sources of my secret, my interests, reside in the education I received from them."

Popielawy, the village where Kolski spent those few important years of his childhood between the ages of 11 and 15, appears in each of his films, almost as if it were a trademark. This is even true of "Pornografia / Pornography", which is otherwise unrelated to the director's life and biography.

The world that Jan Jakub Kolski has created in such films as "Pograbek", "Jańcio Wodnik / Johnnie Aquarius", "Cudowne miejsce / A Miraculous Place", "Szabla od komendanta / The Sword from the Commander" or "Grający z talerza / The Man Who Read Music from Plates" has its devoted admirers. As Grażyna Stachówna has stated, "Johnnieland" for them is

"a separate and unusual place, one that is somewhat terrifying and mysterious, somewhat humorous and infantile, but one which they always seek out and hold dear."

Viewers and critics praised "The Burial of the Potato", they liked "Pograbek", and with "Johnnie Aquarius", which features an exquisite performance by Franciszek Pieczka, Kolski cast a spell on almost everyone without exception. Humans, however, desire novelty, and Kolski's subsequent films in fact lacked any aura thereof and encountered much criticism. According to Anita Piotrowska, to name but one detractor, "The Miraculous Place" or "The Man Who Read Music from Plates"

"offered us what was fundamentally the same fare: the immortal menagerie of rural oddballs inhabiting the same 'colorful bazaars' of the strongly mythologized Polish provinces" ("Kino" monthly, no. 11/1998).

"Popular opinion has it that my films are similar to each other," the director said in an interview for "Rzeczpospolita" daily in which he responded to the criticism. "They seem similar because my handwriting remains the same: I set up similar camera angles, I stage shots so that multiple situations happen in the frame, the same actors reappear in generally rural settings. I write my own screenplays, so the dialogues also probably have the same melody. On the other and, could I have dreamed merely five years ago that someone would be able to recognize the film they are watching as one of my own after a few initial sequences?" (J. Wójcik, "Rzeczpospolita" daily, April 26th, 1996).

"Jan Jakub Kolski's films, which are similar to each other in terms of storyline and aesthetic, are exceptional in contemporary Polish cinema. Specifically, they are exceptional examples of works in which there is an evident presence of a real author, a creator of a filmic universe and a distinct style, an artist who incorporates elements of his own biography and family history in his works, which manifest a private topography, an original imagination and autonomous moral judgments," wrote Grażyna Stachówna.

It would be an oversimplification to see Kolski's films solely as featuring an enchanting, poetic style, a gallery of characters that are a mere collection of eccentrics and beautiful photography. It should be underlined that autonomous moral judgments - deriving in the most general terms from the spirit of Manicheanism - are essential to the creative message inscribed in Kolski's films. Incessant analysis of the relationship between good and evil, which Kolski pursues in practically every film, renders each of them a kind of morality tale. Of course, these efforts need not be acceptable to everyone, as they were not to Jan Olszewski, who took an ethical position and published a highly critical review of Kolski's "The Miraculous Place" ("Film" monthly, no. 2/1995).

With "Historia kina w Popielawach / The History of the Cinema in Popielawy", a film that differed somewhat from his previous works, Kolski proved capable once again of gratifying those members of the audience who had become somewhat bored with his consistency.

In speaking about his earlier films, Kolski stated that they grew out of a rural tradition he came to know through members of his mother's family. For "The History of the Cinema in Popielawy" he drew on his father's side of the family, on a family tradition that was linked to the cinema since the early years of the 20th century. Jan Jakub Kolski's great grandmother opened one of the first movie theatres in the city of Łódź in 1907, while his grandfather was a film producer and distributor for big American studios. Both Kolski's father and older sister are editors. In "The History of the Cinema in Popielawy" Kolski did not, of course, retell the story of his own family. Rather, the director's aim was to explore tradition in its more symbolic form, to explore the fascination one can have for cinema. He would not be himself if his "History of the Cinema..." were a realistic film, as a result of which this picture, marked by the fairy-tale style of his previous films, tells the story of the Polish craftsman Andryszek, who half a century before Edison and the Lumiere brothers built a machine for projecting moving pictures.

"Kolski", wrote Grażyna Stachówna about 'The History of the Cinema in Popielawy,' "has proven capable of matching three modes of cinematic visualization to the three levels of memory delineated in his film. The story of Andryszek Pierwszy (Andryszek the First) has the aura of a nostalgic reminiscence of a time long past. It features sepia images, visual patterns reminiscent of those we see in the paintings of the Impressionists and of Artur Grottger, and a mood typical of old cinema. The story of Stas and Szustek is an impressive exercise in the style of Kolski's earlier films: reality blends with fairy tale, rural landscapes acquire sacral features, human matters vibrate with the passions concealed within them. Kolski achieved cinematic self-awareness, on the other hand, by using a handheld camera. This manner of filming underlines the camera's subjective gaze, the presence of a medium, the technical side of recording images. The film process is unveiled: the picture shakes, rolls, is technically imperfect, actors look straight into the lens and speak directly to the camera, crewmembers appear in certain shots and the director's voice can be heard off camera."

Kolski's film would have been an excellent way of marking the centenary of cinema in 1995, however the director was unable to gather the required production resources in time and made the film two years later. A constant shortage of funds has in recent years plagued not only the career of Jan Jakub Kolski, but the entire Polish film industry. In another interview for "Rzeczpospolita" daily, Kolski complained:

"For three years I made no films. 'There is no money,' I was told incessantly. I had to focus my energies on something, I had to do something to prevent myself from going mad, so I directed a handful of television theatre productions and I wrote a novel" ("Rzeczpospolita" daily, November 27, 1998)

Kolski's most recent works have been adaptations. They include "Daleko od okna / Keep Away from the Window", produced using very modest means from a screenplay by Cezary Harasimowicz which in turn was based on a short story by Hanna Krall, and "Pornografia / Pornography", based on the novel of the same title by Witold Gombrowicz.

The latter film represented Poland at the Venice Film Festival, where unfortunately the jury failed to notice it. During the Festival of Polish Feature Films in Gdynia, Kolski's film had to concede to Dariusz Gajewski's "Warszawa / Warsaw" in the rivalry for the Grand Prix. Under the circumstances, however, it is hard to determine objectively if the verdict derived from strictly artistic assessment and to what degree the jury may have been decisively influenced by the fact that Kolski's film was produced by Lew Rywin, who was the infamous central figure of an unsavory political and business scandal.

"Keep Away from the Window" was Kolski's first film for which he drew on an existing literary work and someone else's screen adaptation thereof, supplementing these to a degree with is own authorship. For "Pornography", he also drew on an existing literary work but did not accept the screen adaptations he was offered. Instead, Kolski produced his own adaptation (with contributions from Krzysztof Majchrzak, the actor who portrayed the main character), that seems none too distant from the original, yet introduces a series of changes that fundamentally affect the meaning of the work. One might even say that Kolski's version offers a view of the world and people that differs from that of Gombrowicz. Also, fully conscious of what he was doing, Kolski decided not use the novel's highly singular language.

"While working on 'Pornography,' I came to understand that one must be audacious in adapting Gombrowicz's works. One must almost be impudent," said the director in an interview with Barbara Hollender ("Rzeczpospolita" daily, October 17th, 2003)

Kolski rejected many sections of the novel that he considered simply too literary.

"When I cut those sections", he said in the same interview, "very little was left, as a result of which I 'dressed up' the heroes in new events and above all gave them motivations that Gombrowicz had denied them."

Through Kolski's handiwork, the literary characters acquired biographies, and this is especially true of Fryderyk, who proves to be a tragic figure in the film.

"Yes, I gave him a more ruined life than did Gombrowicz," explained Kolski. "But I also gave him more opportunities at salvation. I dreamt of viewers leaving the cinema, their hearts broken but filled with hope."

Fryderyk as shaped by Kolski is both interesting and rich, but completely un-Gombrowicz-like. It appears that Gombrowicz saw people as much more cynical than does Kolski. Thus, Gombrowicz required no complicated psychological motivations to show how someone might toy with the lives of other human beings.

Jan Jakub Kolski remains a creator of his own variety of auteur cinema, and we can only assume that he has failed in recent years to fully express his creative independence for non-artistic reasons. Apart from "Pornography", his recent directing credits have included a television series and a number of stage plays. He has published a number of new novels in which he describes a world very much akin to the one he created in his most renowned films. Kolski has also made a number of travel documentaries. The director is currently working on the concept for a new feature film that would be very much in the vein of his brand of auteur cinema.

Filmography

Feature Films:

• 1990 "Pogrzeb kartofla / The Burial of the Potato" (screenplay, director). It is 1946 and Mateusz Szewczyk returns to his home village from a concentration camp. His former neighbors, sure that Mateusz perished, have already made off with his property and now look upon him hostilely as an unwanted competitor who will reduce the share they will receive of a local estate that is to be divided under a national program of agricultural reforms. Mateusz learns that while he was away his neighbors allowed his wounded son to die. Szewczyk forces those who have wronged him to show him his son's place of burial. When he finds himself in the field where his son was interred, he encounters little David, a child survivor of the Holocaust. In surprising fashion, Kolski proved capable of saturating this dark film about hatred with a measure of poetry and beauty.
  
  
• 1992 "Pograbek" (screenplay, director). Pograbek is a man who earns his living by burying dead farm animals. He and his handicapped wife, Kuśtyczka, live a hard life. In spite of this, they would be happy if they could only have a child. They fail in their attempt to adopt the newborn of an unmarried maiden from their village. They decide that the local seducer should father the child that Kuśtyczka will give birth to. This scheme comes to threaten their relationship when Kuśtyczka falls under the playboy's spell, but Pograbek proves capable of fighting for his happiness. In the "Leksykon polskich filmów fabularnych" / "Lexicon of Polish Feature Films," Grzegorz Pieńkowski wrote that the world described in this film "surprised all with its poetry, poetry residing where only biology and brutality were previously perceived."
  
  
• 1993 "Magneto" (screenplay, director, author of song lyrics). A Polish-French co-production that was created as part of a never-completed series titled "Autrement / Outsider". Kolski's 'installment' waited until 1998 for its premiere and tells the story of Polish émigré who returns to Poland after living in France for many years. She meets people who tell her of her father, a man named Magneto, who was called so because of his singular ability to attract metal objects like a magnet.
  
  
• 1993 "Jańcio Wodnik / Johnnie Aquarius" (screenplay, director, author of song lyrics). An old wanderer casts a spell on a village he passes. Jańcio (Johnnie), one of its inhabitants, suddenly acquires the power to work miracles and to cure people with water. Johnnie does not realize that this is a test of his character. He abandons his pregnant wife Weronika and sets out into the world. He becomes famous and surrenders to the sin of pride. He comes to understand his error when his child is born with a devil's tail and he loses his curing powers.
  
  
• 1994 "Cudowne miejsce / A Miraculous Place" (writer and director). (screenplay, director). In a strange, fantasy village, two forces struggle against each another, their sources remaining unidentifiable at. Miracles occur here, but their Godliness seems suspect at times. Pagan cult practices blend with authentic religiousness. One particularly upsetting fact is that a shameless girl, the waitress at the local inn, possesses marks resembling stigmata on the palms of her hands. There are two priests in the local community. One seems 'overly flexible' in the performance of his functions but ultimately demonstrates himself to be mature. The other is young, recently consecrated and newly appointed to the parish, and he proves excessively trustful of what he sees. Kolski purposely provides an ambiguous judgment of their attitudes on the premise that good and evil co-exist in the world; the director seems to say that these two powers need not always be clearly distinguishable.
  
  
• 1995 "Grający z talerza / The Man Who Read Music from Plates" (screenplay, director). This multi-threaded fairy tale about death and love is set in a picturesque village. Located in a flatland, the hamlet proves to be a world populated by loners seeking friendship and love. The cast of characters includes a lonely old farmer, who attempts to bargain with Death when He appears as an angel, and the dwarf Janka, who suffers because of her height. There is also Morka, a man of two faces who hides in a well to escape human curiosity, but to a certain extent acts as a guide through this world. Morka is also a musician who extracts melodies from the rough edges of plate shards as if they were instruments. The main storyline focuses on the love between Morka and Janka. When she comes to know this emotion, the Lilliputian woman begins to grow in size and beauty, but she continues growing beyond all measure.
  
  
• 1995 "Szabla od komendanta / The Sword from the Commander" (screenplay, director). As the director described it himself, this film is a lyrical comedy about veterans of the Polish-Bolshevik War of 1920. Old Jacob dies but he is not let into heaven because of the sword he wears at his side. He must leave it on earth, in the hands of a deserving and trustworthy person. He returns to earth to resolve this matter, and he and his veteran friends embark on a search. Their hope is that they will find a worthy wife for Jacob's son, and that the two will then produce a grandson to whom Jacob could give the sword that he received from his commander, Józef Piłsudski. Jacob's humorous yet light adventures fill out this nostalgic story about the past, a story replete with images from the sphere of fantasy.
  
  
• 1998 "Historia kina w Popielawach / The History of the Cinema in Popielawy" (screenplay, director). Midway through the 19th century, the master blacksmith Andryszek, referred to as Pierwszy (the First), builds a "kinomachine." A historic invention, the device is later bought by the clever Lumiere brothers. Before it is purchased by the French duo, this machine for projecting moving images seems to bring only misfortune upon the Andryszek family. Many years later, the descendent of Andryszek the First in the sixth generation, Józef Andryszek (known as Szustek - i.e. the Sixth), attempts to re-create his ancestor's invention.
  
  
• 2000 "Daleko od okna / Keep Away from the Window" (direction, also camera operation; screenplay by Cezary Harasimowicz based on Hanna Krall's short story "Ta z Hamburga" / "That Girl from Hamburg"). A true story dating from the World War II era. Jan and Barbara are a childless couple. Soon after the Germans occupy Poland, they take in and hide a beautiful young Jewess named Regina. Jan and Regina have an affair and a child is born of their union. Regina survives the war, but must surrender her daughter forever to Barbara and Jan.
  
  
• 2001 "Małopole czyli świat / Małopole, or the World" (director and producer; based on a screenplay by Robert Lewandowski). In this three-part television miniseries, the unjustly condemned Zyga returns to his hometown of Malopole after years in prison. Those guilty of his wrongful conviction fear his revenge. They conspire to make Zyga feel preyed upon and lead to him being accused publicly of another murder. All complications are ultimately resolved. Zyga then wins back his girlfriend and ultimately departs Malopole with her and their son.
  
  
• 2003 "Pornografia / Pornography" (director, writer, co-author with Krzysztof Majchrzak of the screenplay based on the novel of the same title by Witold Gombrowicz and written by Kolski in cooperation with Krzysztof Majchrzak; the credits list Gerard Brach and Luc Bondy as co-authors of the screenplay, though in reality the director did not use their version in making the film). In the difficult days of Germany's World War II occupation of Poland, in a picturesque country manor house, two middle-aged men, Witold and Fryderyk, decide to toy with the feelings of two teenagers, Henia and Karol. They want the two of them to fall in love. This seemingly harmless game, designed to do no more than ruin plans to marry Henia to a highly available bachelor (a local lawyer), spins out of control. The two young people are manipulated into taking part in a political murder (of a man who took part in many heroic guerilla actions but has been condemned to death by the underground resistance because he has suffered a nervous breakdown and is considered potentially dangerous). Henia and Karol successfully assassinate the condemned man together. This excites them and they become attracted to one another. Kolski supplemented this storyline from Gombrowicz's novel with the story of Fryderyk's past, which is revealed gradually and which Kolski himself devised. Fryderyk is persecuted by feelings of guilt for the death of his young daughter, who perished in a concentration camp as the daughter of a Jewess. The film brings his moral dilemmas to the forefront and Fryderyk is shown as feeling doubly guilty - for his recklessness and failure to save his daughter, and for his inability to find the courage to die with her. It is the site of Weronica, the young servant girl at the manor, that evokes Fryderyk's memory of his daughter. Differently than in Gombrowicz's novel, his subsequent toying with the feelings of Henia and Karol seems to be a search, a nurturing of the evil within him, a way of preventing himself from forgetting his own guilt.

Student Films:

• 1983 "Inauguracja 82 / Commencement 82" (director, cinematographer)
  
  
• 1984 "Umieranko / A Little Dying" (director, cinematographer)

Short Films and Documentaries:

• 1982 "Najpiękniejsza jaskinia świata / The Most Beautiful Cave in the World" (director, screenplay, author of voice-over narration with Jarosław Żamojda)
  
  
• 1984 "Mały dekalog / A Little Decalogue" (director, screenplay, cinematographer)
  
  
• 1985 "Jak mnie kochasz / If You Love Me" director, screenplay, cinematography with Józef Romasz)
  
  
• 1985 "Nie zasmucę serca twego / I Shall Not Sadden Your Heart" (director, screenplay, cinematographer)
  
  
• 1985 "Polskie parki i rezerwaty przyrody / Polish Parks and Natural Reserves" (director, screenplay, cinematography with Jarosław Żamojda)
  
  
• 1986 "Słowiański Świt. Początki Polski / The Slavic Dawn - the Beginnings of Poland" - episode 1 of the series "Dzieje Kultury Polskiej / The Annals of Polish Culture" (director, screenplay, cinematographer)
  
  
• 1988 "Ładny dzień / A Nice Day" (director, screenplay, cinematographer, production design with Tadeusz Marciniak)
  
  
• 1988 "Szkoła przetrwania / Survival School" (director, screenplay, and cinematography with J. Duszyński and J. Florczak)
  
  
• 1988 "Pałkiewicz ma racje / Pałkiewicz is Right" (director, screenplay, cinematography with J. Duszyński i J. Florczak)
  
  
• 2001 "Zobaczyć jak najwięcej / To See as Much as Possible" - five-part reportage (direction and cinematography with Witold Chomiński)
  
  
• 2002 "Gdzie jesteś Paititi? / Where Are You, Paititi?" (direction and cinematography with Witold Chomiński)
  
  
• 2003 "Między rajem a ziemią / Between Heaven and Earth" - five-part reportage (direction and cinematography with Witold Chomiński, underwater and airborne footage by Cybele Wiśniewski)

Others:

• Jan Jakub Kolski served as the cinematographer on Bolesław Pawica's short films "Odrobina bólu / A Little Pain" (1982), "Za górami / Beyond the Hills" (1983). He was also a co-director of photography on Maciej Łukowski's films "Motyle profesora Razowskiego / Professor Razowski's Butterflies" (1987) and "Rekwizyty Wiesława Garbolińskiego / Wiesław Garboliński's Props", "Trzy tematy Leszka Rózgi / Leszek Rózga's Three Topics" (1987) as well as on Grzegorz Królikiewicz's film "Idz / Go".
  
  
• In addition, Jan Jakub Kolski has directed a number of television theatre productions, including "Bajki o bardzo lekkim chlebie / Fables of Very Light Bread" (1997, writer and director), "Wyspa róż / The Island of Roses" based on a play by Sławomir Mrożek (1998), "Skrzypki / The Violin" (1999, writer and director), and "Kamera marzeń / Dream Camera" (2001, writer and director). He is also the author of the play "Noga dla Józefa / A Leg for Joseph", produced by Polish Television Theatre in 1997 and directed by Michał Rosa.

Author: Ewa Nawój, April 2004.

Browsing history