I was born in Olsztyn, in Poland’s Lake District, at the same hospital where my wife, Eliza, was born. But we met almost twenty years later, when each of us moved to Warsaw: this is where we studied, then married and settled down. Ever since the 1990s, we’ve been sharing our lives, interests, jobs and joys.
During my studies my major was literature, but in fact I paid special attention to film, particularly to its theoretical, or even philosophical, dimension – for instance, I interpreted and tried to develop Gilles Deleuze’s film theory. Then, while preparing my PhD, I got attracted to cognitive film theory and the question of the status of film representation, especially in the context of postmodern cinema. During my academic career I also ran a number of courses, most of which concerned film, while others dealt with issues of theory of culture, history and translation.
At the same time, beginning in the mid-1990s, I wrote my first screenplays with the support from Polish Script Agency and my mentors, Andrzej Konic, Maciej Maciejewski, and, most importantly, Henryk Romanowski (FILMONTRACT). Later I also took part in training programmes for film professionals, including Script Factory, ScripTeast, and Workshop and EKRAN programmes in Wajda School.
Trying to bridge my academic activity and my work as a screenwriter, I founded SWPS Film Lab, which organized a series of meetings and interdisciplinary courses for the students of SWPS, during which both students and members of the University teaching staff consulted film projects developed in Munk Studio. SWPS Film Lab inspired several other film initiatives, for instance, the development of Speakers’ Avenue, a film educational collective, where, since 2019, I have shared my thoughts on the process of creating stories.
As a screenwriter, between 2005 and 2012, I collaborated in particular with Bartosz Konopka. We debuted together with a short titled Three for the Taking in 2006. Then came our feature-length debut, Fear of Falling (2011). In these years I also consulted Rabbit à la Berlin (2009), Bartek Konopka and Piotr Rosołowski’s Oscar-nominated documentary.
Later I continued my collaboration with Munk Studio by consulting the screenplay for Women’s Day (2012), directed by Maria Sadowska, and writing three other short screenplays produced in the ‘30 Minutes’ programme.
Meanwhile, apart from supporting directorial debutes, I also collaborated on a film project of Krzysztof Krauze and Joanna Kos-Krauze and then, between 2014-2018, I was engaged in several film projects of Paweł Pawlikowski, out of which one was released as Cold War (2018).
Beside my professional activity as a screenwriter and lecturer I sometimes got engaged in projects from other fields, either as a consultant or manager. Thanks to this I could collaborate with people from various backgrounds, including IT, marketing and politics. A specially important experience here was running – in collaboration with JLL and TBWA – a marketing campaign “Aim High” for the City of Warsaw, which supported sale and rent of city properties. The project had global reach, and its clients were international corporations and public institutions. In 2006, at the peak of the campaign’s impact, the sales of city properties in Warsaw increased five times year to year and the municipal budget of the capital of Poland gained about 500 mln PLN (over 100 mln Euro) in extra funds.
Recently, my work has shifted more and more towards creative output, although I am still experimenting with new forms of professional activity, especially connected with education and research. My latest screenplays, most importantly those written in collaboration with Marta Minorowicz, are still exploring the genre of family drama/romance. Apart from screenplays, however, I have turned more and more often to literature, which has been to a large extent inspired by Eliza’s research into and engagement with Pre-Romantic and Romantic poetry. Thanks to such grounding in tradition and theory as well as constant pursuit of experimentation, I feel more and more often like I could catch some glimpses of the world beyond the postmodern.