One of the most original Polish directors and scriptwriters. Kondratiuk’s work keeps on evolving, but the idea of a personal cinema is present in all of his movies. Kondratiuk makes his films together with a group of friends, by modest means, maintaining control of each stage of the movie’s formation.

This leading creator of independent cinema Vistula was born in 1936. He spent the war in Kazakhstan, then moved to Lodz, where he graduated in cinematography. His first movies had a flavor of the experiment. Kondratiuk was looking for his own aesthetics “I would like to shave ” is a macabre mixed with bitter absurdity, when small-town barber kills his client to steal his identity. The superb “The Watter Puzzle” is a brilliant pastiche of comic book superhero theme, where the superhero aims to unravel the mystery of taps without water. His two works director with a popular duo Himilsbach-Maklakiewicz, “Esctatic” and “Jak to się robi” shot in the Gierek era, reached cult status.

In Kondratiuk’s movies, eccentric interests are combined with a consistent desire to pursue his own vision of cinema. The director is often also the writer and the operator, editor, but he also writes the music and arranges the set in his movies. Versatility serves the artistic independence. In spite of the development of the movie industry, Kondratiuk’s movies are modest, flowing from the heart and at its own plan. This sort of cinema is becoming an important part of life.

In the mid-70s Kondratiuk moved to the village Gzowo with his wife, muse, friend and actress, Iga Cembrzyńska. They still live there. “Gzowo Cinema” is the time of fulfilled cinema. Kondratiuk’s movies become visually sophisticated, but the object of contemplation is the everyday life, the surrounding commonness, which becomes a contribution to reflection on the transience. In the trilogy, “Four Seasons “, ” The Spindle of time,” “The Sundial”, Kondratiuk invites the viewer to spy on his own life. Fiction is hard to distinguish from real life events.

The achievements of the director are a fascinating testimony to an artist who sought his own creative method. His movies, never considered blockbusters, have a group of diehard fans. Watching them is entirely different from what one may encounter in the ordinary movies’ universe.

Sebastian Smoliński

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Andrzej Kondratiuk (1936) Director, screenplay writer and cinematographer. In 1962 – 63 he studied Directory in Łódź Film School. He is an author of low budget films, often using autobiographical plots. His actors are mostly people from his nearest surrounding, non-professionals as well. Kondratiuk’s most appreciated and awarded films are for example “Hydrozagadka and Wniebowzięci”. An artist who created his own world and film language, and who can be described as the creator of Polish neorealism. In 2011 he will turn 75.