Happy 72nd Birthday, Agnieszka Holland! Born today in 1948, this Polish screenwriter, television and film director is best known for her political contributions to Polish cinema. Holland is one of Poland's most eminent filmmakers.
Born in Warsaw, Holland was a daughter to a Jewish father and a Catholic mother. Holland was raised a Catholic. This was shortly after Stalin had replaced Hitler in Poland.
Holland was often ill as a child. However, she spent much of her time writing, drawing and directing short plays with other children.
When Holland was thirteen, her father was arrested as a spy by the K.G.B. He was later killed during his interrogation.
At the age of seventeen, Holland sent her plays and drawings to the Czech Film Academy, where they were accepted.
After high school, she studied at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic).
It was also here of where she met her future husband and fellow director. This was Slovakian instructor Laco Adamik.
She had studied there because, as she said in an interview, she thought the Czechoslovak films of the 1960s were very interesting.
"I watched first films of Miloš Forman, Ivan Passer, and Věra Chytilová. They seemed to be fantastically interesting to me, unlike what was being made in Poland at that time".
Holland's professors had been Czech film director, screenwriter and pedagogue Otakar Vávra and Czech film director Karel Kachyňa. The latter had directed the 1970 Czech black and white thriller/drama film 'Ucho' ('The Ear').
Witnessing the Prague Spring of 1968 while in Czechoslovakia, Holland was arrested and sentenced for her support of the dissident movement for the government reforms and political liberalization. She was then held in solitary confinement for several weeks.
She describes her time in Prague as an "introduction to politics, violence, beauty, art, marriage, film and other arts...everything that happened to [her] after was based on this Czechoslovak experience".
It was during her time in Prague and in prison that she realized "she'd rather be an artist than an agitator".
Holland later graduated from Prague Film School in 1971 and went on to become an assistant director.
Afterwards she became involved in directing stage plays and television films. However, the theater scripts she wrote there were not well received by authorities.
In spite of rejection, Holland and other artists of the period achieved great artistic creativity by satirizing the regime/
In 1974, Holland and Krzysztof Kieślowski ('Dekalog, 'The Double Life of Veronique', 'Three Colors Trilogy') became close friends. Together, they began to creatively collaborate.
In addition to making her own films, Holland had also collaborated with the legendary Polish film and theatre director Andrzej Wajda ('Ashes and Diamonds', 'Man of Marble', 'Man of Iron') in 1976. He later became her mentor.
Shortly before the 1981 imposition of the Stan wojenny w Polsce (Martial law in Poland), Holland emigrated to France.
One of Holland's unrealized projects has been the story of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto. The screenplay of the distinguished Polish screenwriter and film director Jerzy Stefan Stawinski was ready in 1981.
Polish actor Bogusław Linda was planned for the main part. However, there was no political climate for the film and therefore it has never been shot.
Among her credits, Holland is best known for co-writing and directing the 1990 Germany/France/Poland historical war/drama 'Europa Europa'. In German, the film is known as 'Hitlerjunge Salomon', lit. 'Hitler Youth Salomon').
The film is based on the 1989 autobiography of Solomon Perel, on how, once as a German-Jewish youth, escaped the Holocaust by masquerading not just as a non-Jew, but as an elite "Nazi" German.
The film follows German-Jewish teenager Solomon "Solek" Perel (Marco Hofschneider), of whom is separated from his family when they flee their home in Germany after Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass). He later ends up in a Russian orphanage for two years.
However, when Nazi troops reach Russia, Solek convinces them that he is an ethnic German Aryan. He then becomes an invaluable interpreter and then an unwitting war hero.
His eventual deception becomes increasingly difficult to maintain after he joins the Hitlerjunge (Hitler Youth) and finds love with the beautiful Leni (Julie Delpy), a fervent anti-Semite.
'Europa Europa' was based on the real Solomon Perel's 1990 autobiographical book Ich war Hitlerjunge Salomon (I Was Hitler Youth Salomon). At the film's finale, Perel briefly appears as himself.
For 'Europa Europa', Adamik served as second unit director. The music was written by Polish film score composer Zbigniew Preisner. He is best known for his work with Kieślowski.
The film should not be confused with Lars von Trier's 1991 political drama war/thriller film 'Europa', of which was initially released as 'Zentropa' in the United States to avoid confusion.
Two years after the film's release, 'Europa Europa' was nominated for Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay). However, it didn't win. This occurred at the 64th Academy Awards in late March 1992.
The following year, Holland co-wrote Kieślowski's 1993 French drama/mystery film 'Trois couleurs: Bleu' ('Three Colors: Blue').
In the early 2010s, Holland was nominated an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
This was regarding her 2011 Polish/German/Canadian war/drama film 'W ciemności' ('In Darkness'). However, it didn't win. This occurred at the 84th Academy Awards in late February 2012.
Today, Holland continues to write independently both in the United States and in Europe. She is currently based in New York and lectures as the Brooklyn College, CUNY.
Among her credits, Holland is also known for directing 'Oliver, Oliver' (1992), 'The Secret Garden' (1993), 'Total Eclipse' (1995), 'Copying Beethoven' (2006), the miniseries 'Burning Bush' (2013), and 'Spoor' (2017).
Holland considers feminism not a central topic in her work, although women always are important in her films.
However, she is best recognized for her highly politicized contributions to Polish New Wave cinema, and is considered one of Poland's most prominent filmmakers.
Her stories are founded in the human story of life and joy in the midst of tragedy and disaster, of the world of man under the hand of God and all the unexpected pains and pleasures of existence.
Holland has been active from 1973-present.
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