PAWEL PAWLIKOWSKI (Director)
Pawlikowski was born in Warsaw and left Poland at the age of fourteen first for the UK, Germany and Italy, before finally settling in the UK in 1977. He studied literature and philosophy in London and Oxford.
Pawlikowski started making documentary films for the BBC in the late 1980s. His docus, which include From Moscow to Pietushki, Dostoevsky’s Travels, Serbian Epics, and Tripping with Zhirinovsky, have won numerous international awards including an Emmy and the Prix Italia. In 1998, Pawlikowski moved into fiction with a low budget TV film, Twockers, which was followed by two full-length features, Last Resort and My Summer of Love, both of which he wrote and directed. Both films won British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards, as well as many others at festivals around the world.
He made The Woman in the Fifth in 2011, and his most recent film, Ida, won the 2015 Foreign Language Academy Award, five European Film Awards, a Bafta and a Goya, among many other prizes. Pawlikowski returned to Poland in 2013 while completing Ida. He currently lives in Warsaw and teaches film direction and writing at the Wajda School.
Cinematography
LUKASZ ZAL is a Polish cinematographer, who previously worked with Pawel Pawlikowski on Ida. Zal was nominated for an Academy Award for Ida, which went on to win the Foreign Language Academy Award. His previous films include Aneta Kopacz’s Oscar-nominated documentary Joanna, and Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman’s Oscar-nominated animation Loving Vincent, on which Zal was one of two cinematographers. His most recent film is the Russian biopic Dovlatov, which premiered at the 2018 Berlin International Film Festival and won the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution.
SOBANSKA and SLAWINSKI, who have worked together for ten years, were the production designers on Pawel Pawlikowksi’s Ida. Other directors they have worked with include Agnieszka Holland and Lech Majewski. They run their own production design studio within the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, and have worked on over 50 productions in film and theatre, for which they have won numerous awards.
JOANNA KULIG (Zula) has made two other films with Pawel Pawlikowski – The Woman in the Fifth and Ida. She is best known beyond that for her work with Agnieszka Holland on Janosik, and for acting alongside Juliette Binoche in Malgorzata Szumowska’s film Elles.
TOMASZ KOT (Wiktor) has appeared in 30 films and a dozen television series in Poland, and is as well known there for his stage performances too.
AGATA KULESZA(Irena) is one of Poland’s leading actresses. She works in film and television and on stage, and played the role of Wanda, the troubled aunt, in Pawel Pawlikowski’s previous film, Ida.
BORYS SZYC(Kaczmarek) is a well known Polish film and theatre actor, who has won a number of awards.
JEANNE BALIBAR (Juliette) is a French actress, who began as a member of the Comédie Française and went on to work with some of the best film directors in the world, including Jacques Rivette, Raoul Ruiz, Olivier Assayas, Michael Winterbottom, Diane Kurys and Mathieu Amalric. She has won a number of awards, including, most recently, the César for Best Actress in 2016.
CÉDRIC KAHN(Michel), in a rare turn as actor in Cold War, is an award-winning French film director and screenwriter, best known for his masterful adaptation of Alberto Moravia’s novel, l’Ennui.
