13 Facts About Jerzy Skolimowski

Jerzy Skolimowski is a Polish film director, screenwriter, dramatist, actor and painter.

Jerzy Skolimowski lived in Los Angeles for over 20 years where he painted in a figurative, expressionist mode and occasionally acted in films.

Jerzy Skolimowski returned to Poland, and to film making as a writer and director, after a 17-year hiatus with Cztery noce z Anna in 2008.

Jerzy Skolimowski received the Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement at the 2016 Venice Film Festival.

Jerzy Skolimowski often recognized indications in his work to a childhood ineradicably scarred by the War.

Jerzy Skolimowski's mother hid a Polish Jewish family in the house and Skolimowski recalls being required to take candy from German soldiers to maintain appearances.

Jerzy Skolimowski was considered as a trouble maker at school as he was the origin of many pranks which angered the authorities.

However, in response to a challenge by Wajda, he produced his own version which became a basis for the finished film, Innocent Sorcerers, directed by Wajda with Jerzy Skolimowski playing a boxer.

Jerzy Skolimowski used the film stock available to him for student exercises, and with initial advice from Andrzej Munk, he filmed over several years in such a way that the sequences were later clipped off and joined together into one piece of work.

Jerzy Skolimowski then collaborated with Polanski, writing the dialogue for the script of Knife in the Water.

Jerzy Skolimowski then resettled in London, notably having Jimi Hendrix as a neighbor in the same building.

Jerzy Skolimowski is an actor, having appearances as Colonel Chaikov, a ruthless yet composed KGB colonel, in White Nights and Uncle Stepan, a Russian expatriate in Eastern Promises, among other roles.

In July 2016, at the Venice International Film Festival, Jerzy Skolimowski was honoured with the Golden Lion for "lifetime achievement".