Tribute to Pawlikowski

Pawel 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 documentaries, 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 “Ida”, won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film in 2015, also five European Film Academy Awards, a Bafta and a Goya, among many other prizes.

Pawlikowski returned to Poland in 2013 while completing Ida.

His most recent film “Cold War” was premiered at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. Critics praised its acting, screenplay, direction and cinematography. The film has received numerous accolades, including three nominations at the 91st Academy Awards (Best Foreign Language Film, Best Director and Best Cinematography) and four at the 72nd British Academy Film Awards, including Best Direction and Best Film Not in the English Language. Also won Best Director Award in Cannes.

He currently lives in Warsaw and teaches film direction and writing at the Wajda School.

Pawlikowski’s filmography includes Vaclav Havel (1989) which won the UN Media Peace Prize, From Moscow to Pietushki (1990) which won an Emmy International, the Prix Italia and the Royal Television Society Award for Best Documentary, Dostoevsky’s Travels (1991) which won the Royal Television Society Award for Best Documentary for the second year running, Serbian Epics (1992) which won the Gran Prix in both the Documentary Film Festival in Marseille and the Festival dei Popoli in Florence, Grave Case of Charlie Chaplin (1993), Tripping With Zhirinovsky (1995) which won the Grierson Award for Best British Documentary and the Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival, The Stringer (1997), Twockers (1998), Last Resort (2001) which won a BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to British Film, and Best Film at the Edinburgh, Gijon, Motovun and Thessaloniki Film Festivals, together with the European Film of the Year Award from the German Ministry of Culture, and My Summer of Love (2004).