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1-50 of 905
- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Lead icon of the influential New German Cinema of the 70's & 80's, Schygulla's natural blonde beauty and amazing versatility keep her among the world's top actresses. She won best actress at Cannes in 1983 for The Story of Piera (1983) (aka "The Story of Piera"), an Italian/German co-production. The Turkish/German co-production, The Edge of Heaven (2007) (aka "The Edge of Heaven"), won the 2007 Cannes award for best screenplay. The now silver-haired actress appears to have shunned plastic surgery.
One of many protégés of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who gave Schygulla especially tender treatment and nurturing, while he terrorized, manipulated, and slept with many of the other actors and filmmakers Fassbinder developed in his incestuous family-like theatrical and film troupes.
Over 12 years, Hanna Schygulla appeared in 23 Fassbinder movies (including his first feature film), the most-acclaimed being The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) (aka "The Marriage of Maria Braun") (for which she won the Silver Bear), Lili Marleen (1981) and Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980). After a disagreement with Fassbinder, she did not appear in his final 4 movies. Their mentor/muse relationship is often favorably compared with that of Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich. Schygulla met Fassbinder while she was studying romance languages and taking acting lessons in Munich, then became a member of his collective theatre troupe, "Munich Action Theatre", which eventually evolved into his film group.
After Fassbinder's 1982 death, she appeared in a few commercial films, and when she does act now, concentrates on complex roles in films with unique, international social messages. Her better known non-Fassbinder movies include Kenneth Branagh's Dead Again (1991), Casanova (1987) (with Faye Dunaway), Andrzej Wajda's A Love in Germany (1983) (aka "A Love in Germany") and Margarethe von Trotta's Sheer Madness (1983) (aka "Sheer Madness"). She's renowned for portraying strong, sensual women, and her language ability enables her to appear in films produced by many countries. Her singing was featured in Lili Marleen (1981) and Sheer Madness (1983) (aka "Sheer Madness"). Since 1997, she has turned away from movie acting, primarily to chanson singing, recording CDs, appearing in the movie, Hanna Schygulla Sings (1999) and, in 2007, a one-woman autobiographical musical (including songs of Janis Joplin, Édith Piaf, Billie Holiday, Brecht). She was the lead and sang in a live Vanessa Beecroft conceptual art piece in a German castle, with Fassbinder's long-time associate, Irm Hermann, plus 23 other women. Schygulla has worked on producing films about Berlin's Holocaust memorial, and about her work with Fassbinder.
Many of Fassbinder's film plots reflect his bizarre working relations with cast and crew, and he often reserved the most glamorous costumes and dramatic roles for Hanna Schygulla, intentionally pressuring his other talented actresses, such as his feisty ex-wife Ingrid Caven, and the abused Irm Hermann. The extremely tense relationships in the all-female The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) (aka "Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant") somewhat reflect real-life interactions of Hermann, Schygulla (both are in the movie), Fassbinder, and his mother.
Hann Schygulla's childhood family situation somewhat parallels her role, typifying Germany's moral dilemmas at the end of World War II, in The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) (aka "The Marriage of Maria Braun"). Schygulla was born on Christmas Day 1943, in Kattowice, Upper Silesia (then a section of Poland annexed by the Third Reich). Her German father was an infantryman in Italy, who was in a POW camp until she was 5. After the war, the German population was expelled from the Kattowice area.- Actress
- Music Department
- Producer
Agata Buzek was born on 20 September 1976 in Pyskowice, Slaskie, Poland. She is an actress and producer, known for Redemption (2013), The Innocents (2016) and The Reverse (2009). She has been married to Adam Mazan since 30 September 2006.- Olek Krupa was born on 18 March 1947 in Rybnik, Slaskie, Poland. He is an actor, known for Hidden Figures (2016), Home Alone 3 (1997) and Burn After Reading (2008).
- Marzena Godecki was born on 28 September 1978 in Bytom, Slaskie, Poland. She is an actress, known for Ocean Girl (1994) and Round the Twist (1989). She has been married to Damian D'Odorico since 2008. They have two children.
- Actress
- Director
- Producer
Natalia Magdalena Janoszek was born in Bielsko-Biala, Poland. Best known from her work in Bollywood where she gained bigger recognition with lead role in drama "Chicken Curry Law". The story throws light on severe social problem of women safety and depicts the law fight of a foreigner, against corruption. In 2020 she appeared in Netflix production "365 Days" and Hollywood comedy "The Swing of Things" next to Luke Wilson. In 2022 she was on Polish version of Dancing with the Stars and in 2023 Your Face Sounds Familiar TV shows.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Jacek Koman was born on 15 August 1956 in Bielsko-Biala, Slaskie, Poland. He is an actor, known for Moulin Rouge! (2001), Children of Men (2006) and Defiance (2008).- Bella Darvi became a 50s symbol for one of the many movie "Cinderellas" whose bright and beautiful Hollywood fairy tale would come crashing down, ending in bitterness and tragedy. A self-destructive brunette beauty, her life was full of misfortune. Of Polish/French descent, she miraculously survived the tortures of a WWII concentration camp as a youth, only to get caught up in the phony glitter and high-living style of Monaco's casinos as a young adult in Europe. An inveterate gambler and drinker, she was, by chance, "discovered" by movie mogul Darryl F. Zanuck and his wife, Virginia Fox, who thought she had a foreign cinematic allure à la Ingrid Bergman. Despite her lack of acting experience, the Zanucks paid off her gambling debts and whisked her away to Hollywood to be groomed for stardom. Her marquee name "Darvi" was derived from the combined first names of her mentors. It should have been a dream-come-true opportunity. Fate, however, would not be so kind. After three high profile roles in The Egyptian (1954), Hell and High Water (1954) and The Racers (1955) opposite three top male films stars (Victor Mature, Richard Widmark and Kirk Douglas, respectively), Darvi's limited abilities were painfully transparent. Not only was she hampered by an ever-so-slight crossed-eyed appearance, she had a trace of a lisp which, combined with a foreign accent, made her speech appear slurred and difficult to understand. It didn't take long for the actress to go off the deep end. Within a short time, a major sex scandal involving Mr. Zanuck had wife Virginia packing Darvi's bags and any "career" she once had here in America was over. She retreated back to Europe, made a few inconsequential films, and quickly returned to her adverse habits -- liquor and the gambling tables. But this time there was no one to save her. Mounting debts and despair eventually turned her thoughts to suicide. After several attempts, Darvi finally succeeded in 1971 by turning on the gas stove in her apartment. She was only 42.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Magdalena Cielecka was born on 20 February 1972 in Myszków, Slaskie, Poland. She is an actress, known for Pokuszenie (1995), Zakochani (2000) and Venice (2010).- Actress
- Producer
Agnes Albright was born in Bielsko-Biala, Slaskie, Poland. She is an actress and producer, known for Black Mold (2023), True Detective (2014) and Alien: Harvest (2019).- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Malgorzata Gebel was born on 30 November 1955 in Katowice, Slaskie, Poland. She is an actress and director, known for Schindler's List (1993), A Sense of Guilt (1990) and ER (1994).- Actor
- Additional Crew
John Bleifer was born on 26 July 1901 in Zawiercie, Poland, Russian Empire [now Zawiercie, Slaskie, Poland]. He was an actor, known for Les Misérables (1935), Red Snow (1952) and Pacific Liner (1939). He was married to Grace Klestick. He died on 24 January 1992 in Los Angeles County, California, USA.- Director
- Writer
- Editor
A graduate from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Dorota Kobiela was awarded the "Minister of Culture scholarship" for special achievements in painting and graphics for four consecutive years. Through friends Dorota discovered animation and film, and immediately threw herself into learning these new artistic disciplines, attending The Warsaw Film School, Direction Faculty. She has directed one live action short film, The Hart in Hand (2006) and five animated shorts - 'The Letter' (2004), 'Love me' (2004), 'Mr.Bear'(2005), Chopin's Drawings (2011) and Little Postman (2011). Little Postman was the world's first, and to her knowledge still only, Stereoscopic Painting Animation film, and won Stereoscopic Best Short Film at the LA 3D Film Festival, 3D Stereo Media (Liege), 3D Film & Music Fest (Barcelona).
For her sixth animated short, Loving Vincent, Dorota aimed to combine her passion for painting and film, and intended to paint the entire film herself. However once she expanded the project into a feature film the task of writing and directing was such that she has to content herself with directing the 95 painters. Loving Vincent is her feature film debut.- Cinematographer
- Writer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Slawomir Idziak was born on 25 January 1945 in Katowice, Slaskie, Poland. He is a cinematographer and writer, known for Three Colors: Blue (1993), Black Hawk Down (2001) and Gattaca (1997). He was previously married to Maria Gladkowska.- Actress
- Director
- Music Department
Aleksandra Poplawska was born on 17 March 1976 in Zabrze, Slaskie, Poland. She is an actress and director, known for Television Theater (1953), Klangor (2021) and Diabel.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Aleksandra Adamska was born in 1990 in Katowice, Slaskie, Poland. She is an actress, known for Ameryka (2015), Soulcatcher (2023) and Diagnoza (2017).- Composer
- Music Department
- Writer
Wladyslaw Szpilman was born in 1911 in Sosnowiec. On leaving school, he went to Warsaw to study music (piano) in the Chopin School of Music, under Professor Jozef Smidowicz, and later, under Professor Aleksander Michalowski (both scholars of Franz List). In 1931 he went to Berlin to the Academy of Music studying under Professor Leonid Kreutzer and Arthur Schnabel (piano) and Professor Franz Schreker (composition). At this time he wrote his Violin Concerto, Piano Suite "Zycie Maszyn" (The Life of Machines), Concertino for piano with Orchestra, many works for piano and violin and also some songs. In 1935 Szpilman entered the Polish Radio, where, except during the war, he worked until 1963. In 1946, he published his book "Death of a City" - memories from 1939 to 1945. Since 1945, Szpilman has appeared in concerts as a soloist and with chamber groups in Poland, throughout Europe and in America. He and Bronislav Gimpel formed a very successful piano duet in 1932, which grew in 1962 to the Warsaw Piano Quintet, that performed about 2,500 concerts until 1987 worldwide, with the exception of Australia. In 1936 he also started his career as a composer of songs (about 500). About 150 of them were in Poland's pop charts and they are "evergreens" of Polish pop music culture to this day. In the 50s he wrote also about 40 songs for children, for which he received in 1955 the award of the Polish Composers Union. He also wrote many orchestral pieces (ballet, Small Overture, etc.), musicals, music for children's theater and music for about 50 children's radio broadcasts, as well as film music: "Wrzos" (1937); "Dr. Murek" (1939); "Pokoj Zwyciezy Swiat" (1950); "Call My Wife" (1957), and others. In 1961, he initiated and organized the Sopot International Song Festival in Poland, and also founded the Polish Union of Authors of Popular Music. In 1964, he became a member of Presidium of Polish Composers Union, and ZAIKS (Polish ASCAP). In April 1998, his book "Death of the City" will be published by ECON Verlag, a leading German publisher, with commentary by a famous German writer and poet: Wolf Biermann.- Actress
- Music Department
Claudia Ciesla was born on 12 February 1987 in Wodzislaw Slaski, Slaskie, Poland. She is an actress, known for Karma: Crime. Passion. Reincarnation (2008), Khiladi 786 (2012) and Private Number (2010).- Hans Kraus was born on 26 June 1952 in Gliwice, Slaskie, Poland. He is an actor, known for Lausbubengeschichten (1964), Die Lümmel von der ersten Bank - 1. Trimester: Zur Hölle mit den Paukern (1968) and Wenn Ludwig ins Manöver zieht (1967).
- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Marek Probosz is an international stage, film, and television actor, who also writes and directs stage and film productions. He is the Winner of the Best New York Premiere for his show Norwid's Return (2022) and of the Best Documentary Show Award for The Auschwitz Volunteer: Captain Witold Pilecki (2018) which he directed and starred in at the world's largest one actor show festival -UNITED SOLO - on Broadway in NYC. Other notable stage credits include the role of Odysseus opposite award-winning British actor Henry Goodman in Philoktetes at the Getty Villa in Malibu. He starred opposite Oscar nominee Don Cheadle in "Tower of Babel" directed by Academy Award winner Jan A. P. Kaczmarek at Mark Taper Forum Los Angeles. He wrote, directed and starred in the original Odyssey Theater production of AUM or Tormenting of Actors. Probosz's theatrical adaptation of Oscar Wilde's Salome, which he wrote, directed and starred in, was cited by the Czech National Critics Poll as the Best Theater Production of 1987.
Probosz earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in acting from the prestigious Polish National Higher School of Film, Television and Theatre in Lodz, Poland (1984), and a Master of Fine Arts degree in film directing from the prestigious American Film Institute in Los Angeles (1993).
He has over 60 starring roles to his credit. His film and television career spans roles in Polish, Czech, German, French, Italian and American productions and co-productions. In the United States, he most recently worked on Anna Nicole Smith biopic Huricanna, he plaid a father of a psychiatrist - staring Oscar Winner Holly Hunter. He also guest-starred in the feature film Love, Venezia and in CBS' Scorpion. He has had guest-starring roles on ABC's Scandal, CBS' Numbers, NBC's JAG and USA's Monk.
He received strong reviews from The New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety for his portrayal of Roman Polanski in the CBS miniseries Helter Skelter. In 2014, he appeared in the Liam Neeson-narrated, 27 times awarded documentary Love Thy Nature. Probosz starred as the Polish WWII hero Witold Pilecki in the film The Death of Captain Pilecki (2006), which garnered the Special Jury REMI Award at the 2007 WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival and has had screenings at consulates, universities and embassies throughout the world. In 2013, he recorded the audio book The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery, by Captain Witold Pilecki, for Audible.com. The print book, on which Probosz's United Solo Festival performance is based, received the prestigious Prose Award for Biography and Autobiography from the Association of American Publishers and the Silver Award for Autobiography/Memoir from the Independent Book Publishers Association. It garnered excellent reviews from New Republic, Atlantic, Wall St. Journal, The New York Times Sunday Book Review, where it was chosen an Editors' Choice, and many other media outlets, and has been translated and published in foreign languages from China to Europe.
Since 2023 Probosz is touring with the one-actor show Norwid's Return, which he is both starring in and directing, and which in the last year has garnered global recognition and awards in New York and nationwide. This follows his success directing and touring with the multimedia stage production The Auschwitz Volunteer about Auschwitz infiltrator Captain Witold Pilecki, which was featured at American Jewish University, Hillel UCLA, and in venues in Canada and numerous cities in the U.S.
In Poland, Probosz recently starred in the docudrama film, The Burden (2023). He has guests tarred in the popular Polish TV series Father Matthew, and was a regular on the Polish TV series Under the Common Sky. In 2018, he worked on the Polish feature film Once Upon a Time in November (Best Film at Sicily's Taormina Film Fest 2018), directed by Andrzej Jakimowski, and Valley of the Gods (2019), directed by Lech Majewski and starring John Malkovich and Josh Hartnett. He was a regular in the most successful Polish TV series M For Love, and the longest ever aired Polish TV series Clan. He also appeared in the Polish TV series The Commission of Murders and For Good and for Bad.
Probosz has directed 28 hours of interviews with the world renowned writer and shakespeareologist Jan Kott. He has written 11 feature film screenplays, including his most recent thriller, Murderess. His short film Rebel, a psychological thriller on teen suicide, was a precursor to 2004's YMI, an unflinching portrait of the dark forces lurking in the lives of teenagers, which Probosz wrote, directed, produced and starred in, making his U.S. feature debut. The film had its world premiere at The Other Venice Film Festival, where it won the Audience Choice ABBOT Award. In 2016, he directed Highlanders Wedding in Istebna, a play written by his grandfather Jerzy Probosz, for Polish Radio. Probosz is the author of two books published in Poland: The novel Eldorado (2009) and Call Me When They Kill You (2011), a collection of short stories. He also wrote two theater plays AUM, Or Torturing Actors (1990) and Auschwitz No.432 (2018).
Since 2005, Probosz has taught in the UCLA Department of Theater, Film and Television. He has also taught at the Aleksander Zelwerowicz Theater Academy in Warsaw, Emerson College in Los Angeles, Edgemar Center for the Arts in Santa Monica and Williams College, MA. He has given lectures on screenwriting at international film events and has been a distinguished jury member at film festivals throughout Europe, including the Moscow International Film Festival and the International Theater and Film Festivals in Blagoveshchensk (Syberia), Muslim Cinema Kazan, (Tatarstan), IFF in Kyiv (Ukraine), Minsk (Belarus), Tomsk, (Russia), NNW Gdynia, (Poland) and many more. Probosz taught A Master Class - Acting For Camera at the world's largest solo theater festival UNITED SOLO at Theater Row in NYC (2018). During Spring 2021, Probosz was a visiting professor at Williams College, the number one ranked US college for Liberal Arts, where he also taught The New Summer Theater Program. As a special guest of the III Congress of the Polish Theater in Chicago, he taught workshops on acting for the camera. During the Closing Gala, he gave a lecture on Cyprian Kamil Norwid and delivered a stage performance of Kordian on Mont Blanc by Juliusz Slowacki. Recently, he gave a dramatic performance at the University of St. Thomas Houston, TX. Probosz presented the award-winning movie The Death of Captain Pilecki (starring Probosz) at Texas A&M University, College Station (2021) and at University of North Texas, Dallas (2022).
Probosz's work has been honored many times-most recently, he became a laureate of the OUTSTANDING POLE Award - USA in the Culture Category (2023). In 2022 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award of the Helena Modrzejewska Culture Club - MODJESKA PRIZE in Los Angeles, and the 2022 Pola Negri - POLITKA Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th POLA NEGRI Festival in Lipno, Poland - where he participated in the unveiling ceremony of his plaque on the Avenue of the Stars. Probosz has also received a Polish Diaspora Oscar - the GOLDEN OWL in the FILM category (Vienna, Austria 2018), the MORTUI SUNT UT LIBERTI VIVAMUS medal (London, 2011), and the Gold Medal - Knight of Humanity in Auschwitz for his portrayal of Witold Pilecki and in recognition of his outstanding services in sharing Pilecki's ideals and heroism worldwide (Auschwitz, 2011).- Magdalena Mazur was born on 26 May 1976 in Katowice, Slaskie, Poland. She is an actress, known for Daleko od noszy. Reanimacja (2017), Boys Don't Cry (2000) and Rozmowy noca (2008).
- Music Department
- Composer
- Actor
Franz Waxman (Wachsmann) pursued his dream of a career in music despite his family's misgivings. He worked for several years as a bank teller and paid for piano, harmony and composition lessons with his salary. He later moved to Berlin, where he continued his study and progress as a musician. He was able to support himself by playing and arranging for a popular German jazz band, Weintraub Syncopaters, in the late 1920s. Friedrich Hollaender, who had written some music for the Weintraubs, gave Waxman his first chance to move into movie scoring by hiring him to orchestrate and conduct Hollander's score (an arrangement of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) for the film that launched Marlene Dietrich, The Blue Angel (1930), directed by Josef von Sternberg. During 1932 Waxman, a Jew, joined many other Jews leaving Germany as the Nazi vise closed irrevocably on free society. He continued working with Germanfilm makers in France. Waxman did musical arranging and co-scoring, usually with Allan Gray, for approximately 15 European movies (his first independent score was in 1932). "The Blue Angel" producer Erich Pommer liked Waxman's work and offered him the composing job for Liliom (1934), directed by Fritz Lang in France.
Pommer decided to do Music in the Air (1934), a Jerome Kern musical, which meant going to Hollywood. Waxman was asked to come along to do the arranging. Needing no further reason to remain in Europe as the Nazi clouds darkened over it, Waxman began a new chapter in Hollywood film music history. He fortunately had some spare time to study with 'Arnold Schoenberg' after coming to Los Angeles, but he was soon talking to another new arrival, English director James Whale, about scoring Bride of Frankenstein (1935) for Universal. Waxman gave Whale what he wanted--an unusual score to fit the quirky, somewhat over-the-top content of the film (in fact, some of this score was later used in other films). As Waxman worked for Universal through the 1930s, he found himself in assembly-line mode, sometimes sharing scoring credit, and doing a lot of arranging stock music, which was usually used for the studio's many serials. This cranked up Waxman's yearly film output to around 20 or so through 1940.
By 1940, however, he was composing original music scores for other studios, beginning with the romantic music for Selznick Studios' Rebecca (1940)--the first Hollywood film for Alfred Hitchcock--and whimsical fare for MGM's The Philadelphia Story (1940). In 1941 he was doing more work for MGM with Honky Tonk (1941) and his second Hitchcock score, Suspicion (1941) from RKO. By 1943 and for the rest of the decade Waxman was usually scoring for Warner Bros., starting with Destination Tokyo (1943) and including music for some of that studio's classics of the period, such as To Have and Have Not (1944) with Humphrey Bogart. Through the decade he was nominated for an Oscar seven times for Best Film Score.
Waxman moved on to Paramount through the first half of the 1950s and garnered his two Oscars in back--to-back wins for Sunset Boulevard (1950) and A Place in the Sun (1951). This recognition finally underscored what was at the heart of all of Waxman's music: seriously focused attention on relaying a film's story through the content of the music. He would continue his scoring work for several studios into the 1960s, with three more nominations. Some of his music in the 1950s was recycled from his previous scores, as in the case of his third assignment for Hitchcock, Rear Window (1954) which contained used music. Waxman was also active in contemporary classical music. In 1947 he founded the Los Angeles International Music Festival and, as Music Director and Conductor, brought the premieres of works by world renowned contemporary composers to the Los Angeles cultural scene. Among his own output of such music was his popular "Carmen Fantasy" for violin and orchestra. Waxman also composed for TV's Gunsmoke (1955), The Fugitive (1963), Peyton Place (1964) (he had composed the music for the film the series was based on, Peyton Place (1957)) and others. Waxman died relatively young, but because of his steady output, only fellow emigrant Max Steiner (who was nearly 20 years older and whose output entailed more than 200 arrangements of stock music, rather than original scores) was a more prolific early Hollywood composer.- Rafael Stachowiak was born in 1981 in Sosnowiec, Slaskie, Poland. He is an actor, known for Undine (2020), Naked Among Wolves (2015) and The Teachers' Lounge (2023).
- Agnieszka Krukówna was born on 20 March 1971 in Chorzów, Slaskie, Poland. She is an actress, known for Fluke (1999), Farba (1997) and Schindler's List (1993). She was previously married to Radoslaw Fleischer.
- Michal Czernecki was born on 4 April 1978 in Sosnowiec, Slaskie, Poland. He is an actor, known for Krew z krwi (2012), Television Theater (1953) and Na dobre i na zle (1999).
- Writer
- Director
- Editor
Lech Majewski was born on 30 August 1953 in Katowice, Slaskie, Poland. He is a writer and director, known for The Mill and the Cross (2011), Valley of the Gods (2019) and Wojaczek (1999).