Polish director Antoni Krauze dies at 78

Krauze wrote or directed about 50 films in his lifetime.

His last film, a 2016 production entitled Smoleńsk, follows a fictional Polish journalist as she investigates the 2010 Polish plane crash in Smolensk, Russia, which killed then-President Lech Kaczyński, his wife and 94 others, mainly military and political top brass.

Krauze's other films include Czarny Czwartek (Black Thursday, 2011), which recounts bloody anti-communist workers’ protests in northern Poland in 1970, and Prognoza Pogody (Weather Forecast, 1982), the fictional tale of elderly pensioners who decide to escape a care home en masse after hearing reports that a severe winter is coming and witnessing a delivery of coffins.

Meta (Finish Line, 1971), tells the story of two childhood friends who, after years apart, end up living together. The film was slow to gain audiences in Poland due to communist-era censorship.

Krauze was a graduate of the famous Film School in Łodź, central Poland. He began his career as an assistant to Krzysztof Zanussi. In his late twenties, he started to make documentaries.

In 1972 he made his feature film debut. In the 1990s he returned to documentaries, specialising in biographies of writers and artists such as the Nobel Prize-winning poet Wisława Szymborska and film director Stanisław Różewicz.

Krauze received many awards and distinctions, including a special prize for Finish Line at the Gdynia Film Festival in 1981, and the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Reborn Poland in recognition of his artistic achievements.

(mk/vb)

Source: PAP