11 Facts About Wojciech Has

Wojciech Jerzy Has was a Polish film director, screenwriter and film producer.

Wojciech Has had Jewish roots on his father's side, and Roman Catholic on his mother's.

The name Has is the Hollandic, Yiddish and Germanised Jewish surname Haas, meaning hare in English.

Wojciech Has made his debut with Harmony, a medium-length feature, and began making full-length feature films in 1957.

Early on in his career, Wojciech Has gained a reputation as an individualist who avoided political overtones in his art.

Wojciech Has produced his most important films throughout the period when the Polish Film School was at its most prominent; however, his work possessed its own stylistic feeling that was independent of the overt political themes that dominated the prevailing Polish School.

In practically all of his films, Wojciech Has sought to create hermetic environments, in which the problems and storylines of his protagonists were always of secondary importance to the particular world he had created, characterized by an accumulation of random objects that formed a unique visual universe.

Wojciech Has's oeuvre is commonly associated with Surrealist painting in Polish criticism.

Wojciech Has created a number of intimate psychological dramas during his career, such as How to Be Loved and Farewells, focusing on damaged individuals who have difficulty settling into life.

From 1987 to 1989, Wojciech Has was artistic director of the Rondo Film Studio and a member of the Polish State Cinema Committee.

Wojciech Has was the managing director and chief advisor at the school-affiliated Indeks Studio.