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Born on 6 March 1926 in Suwałki, Poland. Film and theatre director, script writer and set designer, one of the topmost artists in the history of the world's cinematography, winner of the Oscar Award for lifetime achievement.

A student of the Cracow's Academy of Fine Arts in 1946-9, Andrzej Wajda graduated from the National Higher School of Film (Directing) in 1953, to make his debut movie, "Pokolenie / Generation", two years later. This story of young lads from the Warsaw neighbourhoods during the Nazi occupation was soon followed by "Kanał / Canal" (1957) and "Popiół i diament / Ashes and Diamonds" (1958), the latter based on a novel by Jerzy Andrzejewski. These two films earned Wajda the reputation of a leading director of the new generation in Europe, and initiated the famous Polish School of film-making, a movement which challenged the national tradition of martyrdom and romantic heroism.

Wajda's first color film, "Lotna", was made in 1959 after a novel by Wojciech Żukrowski. 1960 saw "Niewinni czarodzieje / Innocent Sorcerers", a story of young people of the jazz age, rebellious and alienated. The next year brought "Samson", a movie based on a novel by Kazimierz Brandys, telling the story of a Jew who had escaped from the ghetto. This was followed by two foreign productions: the Yugoslavia-made "Sibirska Ledi Magbet / Powiatowa Lady Makbet / Siberian Lady Macbeth" and "L'amour à vingt ans / Milość dwudziestolatków / Love at Twenty", a French and German co-production, both from 1962.

Wajda's next film, "Popioły / Ashes" (1965), based on a novel by Stefan Zeromski, triggered off the biggest ever debate in Wajda's ten-year film-making career. Wajda made a picture permeated with historiosophical reflection, re-defining once more the attitudes towards Polishness and tradition. Wrote Andrzej Jarecki:

"My first reaction was fear. I felt a shudder at the realisation that I too belonged to the nation whose conduct was shown on the screen. Would anyone else have had the same cruel courage to present one's own nation in such a way? There is presumably no one else in the world who would be able to show in such an exhibitionist manner how cruel and stupid yet faithful and brave we are, what beautiful deaths we can die and how immortal we are, like in the hymn which opens the movie: 'Poland will not die as long as we live...'. We are a nation without brains and without politicians, thoughtlessly moving to perdition and death, and equipped only with hearts and heavy fists for hitting" ("Sztandar Młodych", 25 October 1965).

In 1967 Wajda returned to Yugoslavia to make another film, "The Gates to Paradise", after Jerzy Andrzejewski's novel of children crusades ("Bramy Raju"). 1968 was marked by two pictures, "Przekladaniec / Roly Poly", after a story by Stanisław Lem, and "Wszystko na sprzedaż / Everything for Sale", a film about the movie people, triggered by the tragic death of Zbigniew Cybulski, the legendary Maciek Chełmicki of "Ashes and Diamonds". A satirical social drama "Polowanie na muchy / Hunting Flies" (1970) was followed that same year by "Krajobraz po bitwie / Landscape After the Battle" after a story by Tadeusz Borowski, a movie in which Wajda took up again the war motif, and the poetical "Brzezina / Birch Wood" after a story by Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz. Two years later Wajda made his first movie in Germany, "Pilatus und andere / Pilat i inni / Pilat and others" (1972), based on Mikhail Bulgakov's "Master and Margarita".

1973 saw the production of "Wesele / The Wedding" after a play by Stanisław Wyspiański.

"This film could have expanded the play, added color to it, fulfilled the dreams of theatre set designers by being made ever more fabulously colourful, yet Wajda went in the other direction, making the fabric of the drama palpable and material", wrote Krzysztof T. Toeplitz. "The wedding room in Wajda's film is cramped, stuffy and overcrowded, the hall is narrow, the yard is bleak and muddy, the Host's unfinished canvases lie around discarded in the shed alongside farming equipment. And then this material reality suddenly breaks through the convention of the theatre: theatre cannot happen in such surroundings; life, that is film, can ("Miesiecznik Literacki" 1973 no. 1).

Two years later Wajda makes the Oscar-nominated "Ziemia obiecana / Promised Land". This movie based on a novel by Władysław Reymont is one of Wajda's top cinematic achievements.

"Fascinated as Wajda may seem by the three young heroes' unbounded vitality, energy and enterprising as well as by their lack of inhibitions and appetite for life and sex, he exposes the sheer emptiness of their lives, with its cover of dynamic infantilism and automatic drive to make big money", wrote Tomasz Burek ("Kino" 1974 no. 12).

Wajda created a unique fresco, its protagonists being not only the three heroes but equally the town itself: the 19th-century Lodz, filthy yet wonderful, poised for a big civilisational jump. The movie starred Daniel Olbrychski, Wojciech Pszoniak and Andrzej Seweryn, Wajda's favourite actors who appeared a number of times both in his earlier and later films.

In 1976 Wajda made "Smuga cienia / The Shadow Line", a Polish-British co-production based on a story by Joseph Conrad. A year later came out "Człowiek z marmuru / Man of Marble", a story of Mateusz Birkut, the record-holding worker, whose life back in the 1950s is retraced by a female journalist twenty years later. Incidentally, "Man of Marble"'s script was written by Aleksander Ścibor-Rylski several years before, but the censorship halted the making of the film. "Man of Marble" had its sequel in "Człowiek z żelaza / Man of Iron" (1981), a movie vibrant with the contemporary Polish life, with the protagonists' dramas taking place in the memorable August of 1980.

The 1970s brought two more films by Wajda: "Bez znieczulenia / Rough Treatment" (1978), a reference to the film-making movement of "moral disquiet", and "Panny z Wilka / The Maids from Wilko" (1979), another superb screening of Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz's prose and Wajda's second Oscar-nominated movie. 1980 was marked by "Dyrygent / The Orchestra Conductor", starring John Gielgud, the distinguished English actor.

The 1980s saw Wajda mostly directing abroad. It was in France that he made "Danton" (1983) after "Sprawa Dantona / The Danton Case" by Stanisława Przybyszewska, starring Gerard Depardieu and Wojciech Pszoniak, and "Les Possédes / Biesy / The Possessed" (1988) based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel, with Isabelle Huppert, Omar Shariff and Jerzy Radziwiłowicz. Germany, in turn, was the country where Wajda directed "Eine Liebe in Deutschland / Milość w Niemczech / Love in Germany" in 1983. His only 1980s film made in Poland was "Kronika wypadków miłosnych / A Chronicle of Amorous Incidents" based on a book by Tadeusz Konwicki.

"Despite an outward similarity, it takes us quite far from Wajda's films based on books by Iwaszkiewicz. Unlike 'Birch wood', this movie does not deal with death and its challenge of human existence, nor does it talk about time and how it destroys feelings and dreams. The true element of the protagonists - the element which completely determines their lives - is history with a capital H. Here it is looked at from a special perspective", wrote Jerzy Niecikowski ("Film" 1987 no. 1).

Wajda's later films were unsuccessful attempts at starting a dialogue with the audience. Indeed, the viewers and the critics alike reacted rather dispassionately to his 1990s movies, even though the director reached out for various topics. In 1990 he made "Korczak", a biographical film, and in 1994 directed "Nastazja / Nastassya", based on Dostoyevsky's "Idiot" and starring the Japanese actors Tamasaburo Bando and Toshiyuki Nagashima. 1994 and 1995 marked Wajda's return to war motifs, with "Pierścionek z orłem w koronie / The Crowned-eagle Ring", believed by the cinema historian Jerzy Plażewski to end the Polish school of film-making of the 1950s, and "Wielki Tydzień / Holy Week". Finally, in 1996, came Wajda's screening of Tomek Tryzna's popular modern novel, "Panna Nikt / Miss Nothing".

Wajda managed to recapture genuine contact with the viewers in 1998 with his filming of "Pan Tadeusz" by Adam Mickiewicz. This giant-scale project was taken up while the Polish cinemas were overflowing with super-productions of national prose works on the obligatory reading list, and Wajda's "Pan Tadeusz" proved the only true achievement of them all. Paradoxically, Wajda, who many a time showed the national tradition with its myths in a tilted mirror, made a warm, gentle movie, at the same time perfectly conveying the climate of Mickiewicz's epic poem. This beautiful picture, in which all the good and bad things alike are wrapped in a delicate mist of nostalgia, turned out to be what the audience wanted.

Wajda's two latest movies are "Wyrok na Franciszka Kłosa / Franciszek Klos' Sentence" from 2000 and "Zemsta / Revenge" after a comedy play by Aleksander Fredro, made two years later.

Wajda's theatre debut took place in 1959 with the staging of "Kapelusz pelen deszczu / A Hat full of Rain" by Michael Vincente Gazzo at the Gdynia Drama Theatre. In 1963 Wajda started to direct at the Cracow's Stary Teatr, a relationship that started with Stanisław Wyspiański's "Wesele / The Wedding" and was to continue for many years to come. The 1960s also saw Wajda direct at Warsaw's Ateneum Theatre and at a number of theatres abroad.

In 1971 Wajda put on stage "Biesy / The Possessed", a play by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Starring Jan Nowicki and Wojciech Pszoniak, it was "a great performance with a pulsating, dynamic, somewhat hysterical tempo", wrote Joanna Godlewska in "Najnowsza historia teatru polskiego", Wroclaw 1999. Next came the 1974 staging of Stanisław Wyspiański's "Noc listopadowa / November Night".

"Wajda had employed ascetic film-making means to show the tragedy of Maciek Chełmicki's generation, and used a wealth of theatrical resources as well as music that verged on the operatic to present the tragedy of Maciek's peers in 1831. Yet the tragedy was the same", wrote Maciej Karpiński in "Andrzej Wajda – teatr", Warszawa, 1980.

Another major staging directed by Wajda was that of "The Danton Case" after a play by Stanislawa Przybyszewska. This 1976 performance at the Warsaw's Powszechny Theatre was scant in theatrical effects; instead, the attention of the audience seated on two sides of the acting space was focused on the protagonists, played by Wojciech Pszoniak and Bronisław Pawlik. Indeed, the audience took part, doubling up as the deputies to the Convention and members of the Tribunal.

The following year brought the Wajda-directed premiere of Antonio Buero Vallejo's "Gdy rozum śpi... / The Dreams of Reason" at the Warsaw's Teatr na Woli, with the superb role of Tadeusz Łomnicki as Francisco Goya. Indeed, this as well as other 1970s performances, including "Z biegiem lat, z biegiem dni... / As Years Go By, as Days Go By...", the spectacular play about Cracow at the time of the Young Poland Movement, and "Nastassya Filippovna" after Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "Idiot", with brilliant roles of Jerzy Radziwiłowicz and Jan Nowicki, secured Wajda's position of one of the leading Polish theatre directors. Wrote Teresa Krzemień:

"If Wajda's directing of 'Nastassia' had been limited to no more than casting actors in these two great roles, this in itself would have been great directing" ("Kultura" 1977 no. 3).

Like in films, so in the theatre was Wajda not afraid to enter the very centre of political conflicts, as evidenced by Sophocles' "Antigone", which he staged at Cracow's Stary Theatre in 1984 in the realities of the martial law. Likewise, he was not afraid of experimenting, and cast Teresa Budzisz-Krzyżanowska as Hamlet in the 1989 performance at the Stary Theatre, and Tamasaburo Bando, the Japanese Kabuki star playing female roles, as the leading protagonist in the staging of "Nastassya" at Tokyo's Benisan Theatre the same year.

Other theatre plays directed by Wajda in the 1980s and 1990s included August Strindberg's "Panna Julia / Miss Julia" (1988, Powszechny Theatre in Warsaw); Szymon An-ski's "Dybbuk" (1988, Stary Theatre in Cracow); Mishima Yuko's "Mishima" (1994, Stary Theatre in Cracow); Tadeusz Rozewicz's "Improwizacja wroclawska / Wroclaw Improvisation" (1996, Teatr Polski in Wroclaw); and Stanisław Wyspiański's "Klatwa / The Curse" (1997, Stary Teatr in Cracow).

Wajda adapted some of his theatre productions for television. "The November Night", for example, was produced for the Television Theatre in 1978, and "As Years Go by, as Days Go by..." was made into a TV series in 1980. In 1977 Wajda put on screen Tadeusz Kantor's "Umarla klasa / Dead Class", the famous performance by Teatr Cricot 2. More recently, in 1999, he televised Juliusz Kaden-Bandrowski's "Bigda idzie! / Bigda is coming!", an old text from the inter-war period in which he managed to convey truths about contemporary Poland.

Major awards and distinctions:

• 1955 - Polish State Award for directing the film "Generation"
  
  
• 1957 - Special Jury Award at the Cannes International Film Festival for "Kanal"
  
  
• 1959 - Jury and FIPRESCI Award at the International Film Festival in Venice for "Ashes and Diamonds"
  
  
• 1968 - Polish Radio and Television Committee Award for directing the TV film "Roly Poly"
  
  
• 1971 - Minister of Art and Culture 1st Degree Award for Recent Directing Projects
  
  
• 1973 - Silver Shell at the San Sebastian International Film Festival for directing "The Wedding"
  
  
• 1974 - won viewers' poll at the 6th Łagów Film Summer for the best debut of the past thirty years, for "Generation"; Polish State Award of 1st Degree for outstanding achievement in film directing; The Yeast Award of the "Polityka" weekly; Golden Camera Award of the "Film" monthly for "The Wedding" as the best feature film
  
  
• 1975 - main prize at the Opole Theatrical Confrontations for the staging of Stanislawa Przybyszewska's "The Danton Case" at Warsaw's Teatr Powszechny; Minister of Art and Culture 1st Degree Award; Golden Lions at the 2nd Polish Feature Film Festival in Gdansk for "The Promised Land"; 2nd Class Order of the Labour Standard on the occasion of 30th anniversary of cinematography in the People's Republic of Poland
  
  
• 1976 - Journalists Award at the 3rd Brussels International Film Festival for "The Promised Land"; Golden Spike for "The Promised Land" at the Valladolid Film Week; Diploma of the Minister of Foreign Affairs for outstanding contribution to the promotion of Polish culture abroad; Chairman of the Polish Radio and Television Committee Award
  
  
• 1978 - Premio David di Donatello "Luchino Visconti" for artistic merit of films, variety of topics and life achievement; Jury Award and Best Director Award at the 18th International Film Festival at Cartagena, Columbia, for "The Promised Land"; Jury Award at the 19th International Neorealist Film Festival at Avelino, Italy, for "The Promised Land"; Gdansk Golden Lions at the 5th Polish Feature Film Festival in Gdańsk for "Rough Treatment"; FIPRESCI Award at the Cannes International Film Festival for "Man of Marble"
  
  
• 1979 - Gdansk Golden Lions at the 6th Polish Feature Film Festival for "The Maids from Wilko"; Ecumenical Jury Award at the Cannes International Film Festival for "Rough Treatment"
  
  
• 1979 - Life Achievement Award at the La Rochelle International Film Festival; Order of Cyril and Methodius for contribution to the development of Polish-Bulgarian cultural co-operation
  
  
• 1980 - Special Golden Bunch of Grapes at the 12th Lubuskie Film Summer at Lagow for discovering and supporting the development of new acting talent; Chairman of the Polish Radio and Television Committee 1st Degree Award for achievement of particular value and for co-operation with Polish public television; FIPRESCI, OCIC and Basque Cultural Society awards at the San Sebastian International Film Festival for "The Orchestra Conductor"
  
  
• 1981 - Doctor Honoris Causa of the American University in Washington; Palme d'Or and Ecumenical Jury Award at the Cannes International Film Festival for "Man of Iron"
  
  
• 1982 - France's Legion d'Honneur; Onassis Foundation Award for work for human rights and dignity
  
  
• 1983 - Cesar Award of the French Academy of Film Art and Technology for "Danton"
  
  
• 1985 - The Gottfried Herder Prize for contribution to strengthening cultural relations with nations of Eastern and Southern Europe
  
  
• 1986 - The Luigi Pirandello Award for activity and achievement in the area of theatre
  
  
• 1987 - Kyoto Prize of the Japanese Inamori Foundation for contribution to the development of science, technology and ideas
  
  
• 1989 - Doctor Honoris Causa of Jagiellonian University
  
  
• 1990 - European Felix Award for life achievement; mention of the Jury for "Korczak", outstanding achievement and artistic conduct at the Cannes International Film Festival
  
  1991 - BESEF'91 diploma for life achievement at the 1st Central-European Film Festival at Belgrade (BESEF); Chairman of the Cinematography Commission at the Ministry of Culture Award for directing "Korczak"
  
  
• 1993 - Honorary Member Diploma of the Playwrights and Theatre Critics Association (on the occasion of the Association's 75th anniversary); award at the 18th Opole Theatre Confrontations for directing Stanisław Wyspiański's "The Wedding" at Cracow's Stary Teatr
  
  
• 1994 - French Order of Fine Arts and Humanities; title of an honorary professor of Cracow's Fine Arts Academy; Artur Award of the Łódź Museum of Cinematography
  
  
• 1995 - Japanese Order of the Rising Sun; Doctor Honoris Causa of Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium; award of the Polish ITI centre for the promotion of the Polish theatre abroad; Doctor Honoris Causa of the Lyon 2 Lumière University in Lyon, France
  
  
• 1996 - Super Golden Duck - "Film" magazine readers' award for "The Promised Land"; Praemium Imperiale Award of the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Art; Warsaw Literary Premiere Award for the book "Wajda: The Films"; Silver Berlin Bear for life achievement and, specifically, for "Holy Week", at the 46th International Film Festival in Berlin
  
  
• 1997 - Best Director Award for "Miss Nothing" at the 13th International Film Festival in Troi, Portugal
  
  
• 1998 - Minister of Art and Culture Award for films; title of Honorary Citizen of the City of Łódź; Golden Lions for life achievement and outstanding contribution to the history of the cinema at the International Film Festival in Venice.
  
  
• 1999 - Freedom Award for film-making and for "unparalleled commitment to freedom" at the Freedom Film Festival in Berlin; the Crystal Iris for life achievement at the National Film Festival in Brussels; the title of the Małopolanin of the Year 1999; the Diamond Ticket of the Polish Film Association for "Pan Tadeusz", the film with the largest audience.
  
  
• 2000 - Warsaw's 400th Anniversary Medal; Special Jury Award for the Director-Operator Team (Andrzej Wajda - Witold Sobocinski) at the 8th CAMERIMAGE Festival in Lodz; title of Cracow's Honorary Citizen of 1999 for "emotions sparked off by his films"; The Gazeta Krakowska plebiscite's Man of the Year 1999 title; Doctor Honoris Causa of the National School of Film, Television and Theatre in Lodz; the Teatr Magazine Konrad Swinarski Award for directing the TV production of Juliusz Kaden-Bandrowski "Bigda is coming!"; Doctor Honoris Causa of the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts; title of the Honorary Citizen of Radom; title of the Honorary Citizen of Gdynia; Honorary Award for the best adaptation of Polish classics for the TV Theatre for "Bigda is coming!" at the 25th Opole Theatre Confrontations; The Polish Eagle Film Award for life achievement; the American Film Academy Oscar Award for life achievement; Golden Film Award of the Film Script Group at the Polish Film Association for "Pan Tadeusz"; the 1999 Grand Award of the Culture Foundation for outstanding achievement in the area of culture for "Pan Tadeusz" and "Bigda is coming!"; title of the Most Famous Pole of the Year 1999 awarded by the Polish Radio listeners; title of the Honorary Citizen of Suwalki; Man of the Year of the "Życie" daily newspaper; title of Super Wiktor; Man of the Year 1999 of the "Wprost" magazine.
  
  
• 2001 - Commander's Cross of Legion d'Honneur of the French Republic; German Great Cross of the Order of Merit; Doctor Honoris Causa of the Moscow Theatre Academy (GITIS); Grand Prix in the TV Theatre Category for "Bigda is coming!" at the Sopot Two Theatres Festival; Human Matters Improvement Award of the Czech Pangea Foundation for artistic output and its ethical values.
  
  
• 2002 - The Little Prince's Rose - awarded for special contribution to national and global culture; Doctor Honoris Causa of Łódź University; Business Centre Club's Special Award for contribution to the development of business and market economy in Poland.

Author: Monika Mokrzycka-Pokora, August 2003

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