ANIMATION

Short history of Polish animated film

The author offers a systematic overview of Polish animated film from its beginnings to the turn of the 21st century. Spiritual father of Polish animated film was Wladyslaw Starewicz, one of the pioneers of world animation, although two first Polish quasi-animated films Flirt chair and Durbin has two ends were made in 1917 by Feliks Kuczkowski. Animated film production in Poland fully developed by the end of the 1940s. First authors of animated films in socialist Poland were Zenon Wasilewski and Ryszard Potocki, with two other authors figuring prominently, namely Maciej Sienski and Zdislaw Lachur. After the 1950s period scarce with artistic experimentation, the first sign of change was the film Once there was... by Walerian Borowczyka and Jan Lenice. Another important film was Change of Guards by Halina Bielinski and Wlodzimerz Haup, mainly because these two started the 1960s golden age of Polish animation. Beside Lenica and Giersz, a whole range of authors working at that period proclaimed and practiced the auteur concept (Miroslaw Kijowicz, Daniel Szczechur). This period also produced the notion »Polish school of animation«, also called philosophical, whose main feature was gag with a deeper, universal subtext. Szczechura’s film Journey was one of the most controversial of Polish animated films, which also signaled a symbolical farewell to this era. Still, at the end of the 1960s, new innovative young authors appeared (Julian Antonisz, Jerzy Kucia, Ryszard Czekala), while the 1970s and 1980s, although less artistically inspirational than 1960s, witnessed continual emergence of new authors (for example, Piotr Dumala). In the period after the fall of communism, the greatest success achieved veterans like Kucia and Dumala.

Marcin Gizycki