Wosiewicz, Leszek

(1953-)

   Writer-director Wosiewicz began his career in 1980 with a psychological thriller called The Taste of Water (Smak wody). His next film, the medium-length The Vigil of 1981 (Wigilia '81), was the first work dealing with the introduction of martial law in Poland. Wosiewicz's breakthrough film, the underappreciated Kornblumenblau (1989), introduced a different look at World War II and wartime sufferings close to the spirit of the laconic prose of Tadeusz Borowski. The film worked against the romantic tradition that permeated Polish literature and film— its focus was not on the psychology but on the physiology of the dehumanized hero who survives in the concentration camp by instinct. Wosiewicz also emphasized the grotesque nature of history in Scurvy (Cynga, 1993), a film about the fate of Poles who, after September 1939, found themselves in Soviet-occupied territories and were deported to Siberia. With their stress on the grotesque, absurdist aspect of history, Scurvy and Kornblumenblau shared many characteristics with Agnieszka Holland's Europa, Europa (1991). Wosiewicz's next film, Family Events (Kroniki rodzinne), produced in 1997, narrated a coming-of-age story set in a small town during the period of Stalinism. His recent film, The Crossroads Cafe (Rozdroże cafe, 2005), intriguingly narrates the story of a group of young people committing a senseless, brutal murder during a bank robbery. Wosiewicz, who teaches at the Katowice Film and Television School, is also known for his documentary films, such as the award-winning The Case of Herman Stoker (Przypadek Hermana Palacza, 1986) and Breaking the Silence (Przełamując ciszę, 2002).

   Historical Dictionary of Polish Cinema by Marek Haltof