Animation in Poland

1. Animation in Poland Witold Giersz Miroslaw Kijowicz Jan Lenica Walerian Borowczyk

2. Polish filmmakers have drawn on their nation's rich tradition ofgraphic art, avant-garde theater, and puppetry to create someof the most technically sophisticated, darkly satiric, and fantasticalanimation in the world. 1950s and early 1960s, a time when Polish artists would cloak their indictments of Stalinism, power politics, and repression in allegorical storytelling and ironical wit. Even today, venerable Polish animation studios and independent animation filmmakers continue to produce works noted for their atmospheric tension, subtle graphic shadings, and meticulous, at times even grotesque, attention to detail.

3. Witold Giersz b.1827 • 1927 born in Poraj, Poland graduated from the Lodz Film School • 1950 started to work like animator in Slask Cooperative

4. Witold Giersz b.1827

5. Witold Giersz b.1827

6. Witold Giersz b.1827

7. Witold Giersz b.1827 the organisator of Studio Miniatur Filmowych in Warsaw • 1960 Maly Western made by oil paintings, was a stimulus to the development of  autor 's animation  in Poland. • 1963 Red and Black continued oil technique • 1967 Horse

8. Witold Giersz b.1827 1975 Fire in which the textures of brushstrokes become an integral part of nature's processes worked as an artist, director and producer of animated films. He has awarded almost 50 prizes and distinctions. He has produced over 35 films, many of them received prizes and distinctions.

9. Miroslaw Kijowicz (1929- 1999) • 1929 born in Saint Petersburg, Russia Studied art at Warsaw

10. Miroslaw Kijowicz (1929- 1999) 1960s began work as cartoon film director “short aphoristic films addressed to mental activity” • 1960s HarlequinThe townPortraitsCabaret

11. Miroslaw Kijowicz (1929- 1999) 1963 Fenix • 1964 Vodja • 1965 The banner • 1971 Cages and science fiction • 1978 The Water Babies • 1999 died in Wyszków, Poland.

12. Jan Lenica (1928-2001) 1928 born in Poznan, Poland 1945 started to contribute drawings 1947 graduated from a secondary school of music in Poznań College of Music 1950 art editor of the satirical journal "Szpilki“ 1952 graduated from Warsaw Polytechnic Deaprtment of Architecture 1954 Assistant at the Chair of Poster of the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts 1955 award for lithography for an immediate distinctive style in poster Art

13. Jan Lenica (1928-2001)

14. Jan Lenica (1928-2001)

15. Jan Lenica (1928-2001) 1957 ONCE UPON A TIME with Walerian Borowczyk - grand prize at Venice and Mannhei 1957 Education Days, and Banner of Youth hand-painted graphic interludes in the manner of Len Lye 1957 Striptease 1958 Requited Sentiments Borowczyk and Lenica dispensed with original artwork altogether, relying solely upon montage and camera movement to transform the work of a Sunday-painter into a rather grotesque love story. 1958 Dom (house) 1963 – 1986 lived and worked in Paris

16. Jan Lenica (1928-2001) 1974 moved to the USA and lectured on poster art at Harvard University in Cambrige 1979- 1985 the head of the Chair of Animated Film at Kassel University 1979 the head of animated films department at the University of Kasse 1987 lived and worked in Berlin 1986- 1994 he was Professor of Posters and Graphic Arts at the Berlin Hochschule der Kunste. "I have always liked to move at the periphery of Art, at the crossing of genres. ... I have enjoyed ... combining elements which were seemingly distant, if not quite foreign, blurring the borders between adjacent areas, transplanting noble qualities to "lower" genres, in other words - quiet diversion”

17. Jan Lenica (1928-2001) Shortly after Dom, Lenica's collaboration with Borowczyk ended bitterly and their frictions were never resolved. They retained and developed their preoccupations with the grotesque and the absurd that was so evident in their Polish films. 1959 Monsieur Tete narrated by the absurdist playwright Eugène Ionesco 1960 moved back to Poland and made New Janko the Musician based on Henryk Sienkiewicz animated pastiche 1962 Labyrinth - Kafka-esque tale of a winged lonely man literally devoured by totalitarian rule. 1963 moved to Germany and made The Rhinoceros

18. Jan Lenica (1928-2001) • A 1966-1968 Adam 2 1976 Lenica returned to animation and made King Ubu based on Alfred Jarry's story 1979 Ubu et la Grande Gidouille -the only one of Lenica's films that was to rely upon dialogue. 1980s a major retrospective of poster and animation work at the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris 1990s worked in UK with Tadeusz Konwicki on A Minor Apocalypse – his final film

19. Walerian Borowczyk (1923-2006) 1923 born in Kwilcz, Poland studied fine arts before becoming a lithographer, for which he won the Polish prize and then an animator, often sharing directorial credit with compatriot Jan Lenica. subtly erotic, witty, and subversive animated shorts, their style utterly unlike anything seen up through that time. Late '50s moved to France and all of his major works were produced there 1968 Goto, Island of Love 1972 Blanche

20. Walerian Borowczyk (1923-2006) 1974 Immoral Tales 1975 The Story of Sin the only work made in Poland 1975 La Bête Borowczyk's cinema is one that resists pigeonholing due to his use of many different cinematic styles juxtaposition is an integral part of his art music, photography and editing combine, in his best work, to produce a cinematic poetry much more earthy, human and relevant than anything in Tarkovsky's or Godard's filmography.

21. Walerian Borowczyk (1923-2006) His films generally concern the cruel power of obsessional love and the need for sensual pleasure. They depict how a repressive atmosphere can exploit those in it (Blanche) or lead to the abandonment of control (La Bête). They celebrate joy and show outright disgust at misery but are still endowed with an ironic sense of humour.