Filipski, Ryszard

(1934-)

   Actor and film director. Filipski's first screen appearance was in Jan Rybkowski's The Hours of Hope (1955, not credited). With the exception of The End of the Night (Koniec nocy, 1957, Julian Dziedzina, Paweł Komorowski, and Walentyna Uszycka), he played episodic roles during the Polish School period, often not credited on the screen. In the second part of the 1960s, he appeared in main roles in the films directed by Henryk Kluba, Skinny and Others (1967) and The Sun Rises Once a Day (1967/1972). In 1968 he partnered with Bogumił Kobiela in Andrzej Wajda's television film Roly Poly. In 1969 he starred in Wojciech Solarz's drama The Pier (Molo, 1969) as a ship designer struggling through a midlife crisis.

   Filipski delivered strong performances in several crime films, playing both villains and positive characters. For example, in 1969 he acted as the militia captain in Sylwester Chęciński's Only the Dead Will Answer and the criminal in Janusz Majewski's The Criminal Who Stole a Crime. At the beginning of the 1970s, he appeared in a militia thriller, The Diamonds of Mrs. Zuza (Brylanty pani Zuzy, 1972, Paweł Komorowski), and in an action film set in 1945, Ground Zero (Południk zero, 1971, Waldemar Podgórski). Filipski is, however, best remembered for his remarkable performance in Bohdan Poreba's film Hubal (1973), where he played the legendary Major Dobrzański, known as Hubal, who kept fighting the Germans after the Polish troops were defeated in September 1939 until he died in action in the spring of 1940. After appearing in Jerzy Hoffman's The Deluge (1974), Filipski scripted and directed a political suspense thriller in which he also starred, Heads or Tails (Orzeł i reszka, 1975). In 1980 he scripted and directed another film, the contemporary political drama High Flights (Wysokie loty). Also in 1980, he directed a historical epic, Coup d'etat (Zamach stanu, 1980, also a television series in 1982), a chronicle of the events leading to Marshal Józef Piłsudski's seizure of power in 1926. The role of Piłsudski also belongs to Filipski's finest performances.

   Between 1980 and 1981, Filipski was the founder and head of the film unit Kraków. Later he withdrew from politics (he was a vocal member of the Communist Party) and from cinema and acted only in one film in the 1990s, Waldemar Dziki's Lazarus (1993). He re-emerged in recent years in films such as The Old Tale (2004, Jerzy Hoffman) and Pitbull (2005, Patryk Vega).

   Historical Dictionary of Polish Cinema by Marek Haltof