- Andrzej Munk
Infobox Person
name=Andrzej Munk
caption=
dead=dead
birth_date=birth date|1920|10|16|mf=y
birth_place=Kraków ,Poland
death_date=death date and age|1961|9|20|1920|10|16|mf=y
death_place=nearŁowicz , PolandAndrzej Munk (October 16, 1920–September 20, 1961) was a Polish film director, screenplay writer and camera operator and was one of the most influential artists of the
Polish Film School .Andrzej Munk was born in
Kraków . Shortly before the World War II (in June 1939), he finished his gymnasium. During the German occupation of Poland he moved toWarsaw , where he was forced to hide because of his partially Jewish ancestry. Using a false name, he worked as a construction worker. In 1944 Munk took part in theWarsaw Uprising . After the capitulation, he managed to leave the city and move toKraków and then toKasprowy Wierch , where he started working as a janitor at theropeway station.After the war ended, Munk returned to Warsaw. He joined the reopened Faculty of Architecture at the
Warsaw University of Technology . Because of poor health he left the university and later studied law at theWarsaw University . Finally he moved toŁódź , where he joined the Łódź Film and Theatre School. He graduated in 1951 and started working as a cameraman for thePolska Kronika Filmowa (Polish Film Chronicle). In this period Munk finished several short films and documents. In 1948 he joined thePZPR , but in 1952 was expelled for "blameworthy behaviour".In 1956 he finished "
Man on the Tracks " ("Człowiek na torze"), one of the most important Polish films of the 1950s. The following year he started giving lectures at hisalma mater . In 1957 he finished "Heroism" ("Eroica"), a set of two film novels on the Polish idea of heroism and virtue. In 1960 Munk finished his third film, "Bad Luck " ("Zezowate szczęście"), a tragicomical story of a Polisheveryman who always finds himself in the wrong place and in the wrong time.Andrzej Munk died in a car accident near
Łowicz on September 20, 1961, while on his way home from ex-Auschwitz concentration camp where he was finishing his last film, "Passenger" ("Pasażerka").Since 1965 the Łódź Film School awards the best debutant with the "Andrzej Munk Film Award". During the 2001 Biennale di Venezia a retrospective festival of his films was organized in
Venice .External links
*
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
