Antoni Krauze

Born

1940-01-04

Died

2018-02-14

Birthplace

Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland

Biography

Film and documentary director. He was born on January 4, 1940, in Warsaw. He studied painting at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts and was also associated with the Student Satirical Theatre STS (1958-1961), where he performed as an actor. A graduate of the Directing Department of the Film School in Łódź (1966). At the beginning of his career, he cooperated with the Łódź Educational Film Studio, working on the set of numerous short films during the two years he spent there. In 1968, he joined the "Tor" Film Studio. He made his debut with the television short film Monidło (1969) based on short stories by Jan Himilsbach. His two subsequent short films made in 1971 – Piżama/Pajamas based on the prose by Leszek Płażewski and Meta based on the story by Marek Nowakowski – represent similar poetics of little realism. Given its controversial appeal, Meta (which exposed social acceptance for cunning and corruption) was withheld for nine years (it premiered in 1980). Shown at the Festival in Gdańsk in 1981, the film received a Special Award. The first cinema film Krauze directed was the psychological drama Palec boży/God's Finger (1972) based on the novel by Tadeusz Zawierucha. Also the director's subsequent films were often based on the prose of contemporary authors: Strach/Fear (1975), Party przy świecach/Candlelight Dinner (1980), Gas (1981), Prognoza pogody/Weather Forecast (1982, Grand Prix at the San Remo Festival), Dziewczynka z hotelu Excelsior/The Girl from the Excelsior Hotel (1988), Akwarium/Fish Tank (1995, TV series). All his films are characterised by a heightened sensitivity towards the individual and the complex psychological portrayal of characters. Since 1990, Krauze has been directing mainly documentaries devoted to various artists, including Pisarz/The Writer (1994) by Witold Zalewski, Preisner, czyli droga do sukcesu/Preisner, Or the Path To Success (1995), Układanie życia/Settling Life (1997) about Witold Woroszylski, Idąc, spotykając…/Walking, meeting... (1999) about Stanisław Różewicz, Ćwiczenia z niepamięci/Exercise in Oblivion (2004) about Janusz Morgenstern, and Radość pisania/The Joy of Writing (2005) about Wisława Szymborska. His two documentary films made in 1998 – Szwed z „Wesela”, czyli niezdrowo i romantycznie/The Swede from "The Wedding", Or Insalubrious and Romantic, and Życie wewnętrzne, czyli hobby/Inner Life, Or the Hobby – won awards at the Short Film Festival in Kraków. He returned to feature films in 2011 with Czarny czwartek. Janek Wiśniewski padł /Black Thursday. Janek Wisniewski’s Down, a reconstruction of the dramatic events of December 1070 in Gdynia, for which he received numerous awards, including the FIPRESCI award at the festival in Montreal. Krauze died on 14 February 2018 of a heart attack at the age of 78.