- Occupation
Producer, Director - Country
Poland
Szolajski Konrad
Alwernia
Alwernia is creative documentary based on facts and memories. Some of the materials come from TV archives, other were reconstructed with participation of actors. Alwernia is a birth place and land of mystical happiness of an outstanding theatre artist Mikolaj Grabowski. He is the director of a cult theatrical performance about Polish habits which was a smashing hit and was shown on stage for ten years. The film tells us not only about Grabowski`s work, but also shows the source of it, coming from his personal life, his childhood in the little village with a big Catholic monasery.
Funeral People
Death and funeral in Polish tradition had a special meaning, but something has changed after the year of 1989. We can choose a form of celebration, place where to be buried. The film tells about the complex of funeral industry - corpses make-up people, tailors, ceremony people.
Good Morning, Lenin
An ironic documentary comedy showing Nowa Huta through the eyes of western tourists who would like to touch the past and have a taste of communism. Packed in old Trabant cars, ready for everything, they follow the footsteps of Man of Marble. This unconventional, but educational expedition is organized by young happeners from Kraków – the tourist company Crazy Guides.
Living on Light
There are people who claim they do not eat or at least – attempt to liberate themselves from the necessity of eating. They are not "ill" – they have simply chosen to follow a very unique lifestyle based on Eastern philosophy originated in India. Our guide to this world will be Joanna, a sociologist, Phd. Though the death of her mother a few years ago was a shock, it helped her to understand something of the effects of long-lasting fast. It was this personal experience that inspired Joanna to begin her research of the non-eating phenomenon…
And God Created Sex
A story about father Ksawery Knotz, a charismatic Catholic monk and family counsellor. Open attitude towards sex is a significant part of his teachings. He publishes bestselling books and conducts marriage retreats dedicated to new and original concepts related to human sexuality. Over 20 years after the fall of the iron curtain, millions of people still declare to be Catholics and practice this religion in its most dogmatic version. Each Sunday temples are filled with believers taking part in religious ceremonies. These peoples’ lives are organized in accordance with religious practices. Polish Catholics have a new dilemma now - after the change of the political system their attitude towards life and especially towards sex started to become more “European”. Once puritans, they are now becoming hedonistic. And try to combine their sexuality and the dogmatic teaching of the Church, where most of what is pleasant is banned. The riddle seems to be insoluble.
Alwernia is creative documentary based on facts and memories. Some of the materials come from TV archives, other were reconstructed with participation of actors. Alwernia is a birth place and land of mystical happiness of an outstanding theatre artist Mikolaj Grabowski. He is the director of a cult theatrical performance about Polish habits which was a smashing hit and was shown on stage for ten years. The film tells us not only about Grabowski`s work, but also shows the source of it, coming from his personal life, his childhood in the little village with a big Catholic monasery.
Funeral People
Death and funeral in Polish tradition had a special meaning, but something has changed after the year of 1989. We can choose a form of celebration, place where to be buried. The film tells about the complex of funeral industry - corpses make-up people, tailors, ceremony people.
Good Morning, Lenin
An ironic documentary comedy showing Nowa Huta through the eyes of western tourists who would like to touch the past and have a taste of communism. Packed in old Trabant cars, ready for everything, they follow the footsteps of Man of Marble. This unconventional, but educational expedition is organized by young happeners from Kraków – the tourist company Crazy Guides.
Living on Light
There are people who claim they do not eat or at least – attempt to liberate themselves from the necessity of eating. They are not "ill" – they have simply chosen to follow a very unique lifestyle based on Eastern philosophy originated in India. Our guide to this world will be Joanna, a sociologist, Phd. Though the death of her mother a few years ago was a shock, it helped her to understand something of the effects of long-lasting fast. It was this personal experience that inspired Joanna to begin her research of the non-eating phenomenon…
And God Created Sex
A story about father Ksawery Knotz, a charismatic Catholic monk and family counsellor. Open attitude towards sex is a significant part of his teachings. He publishes bestselling books and conducts marriage retreats dedicated to new and original concepts related to human sexuality. Over 20 years after the fall of the iron curtain, millions of people still declare to be Catholics and practice this religion in its most dogmatic version. Each Sunday temples are filled with believers taking part in religious ceremonies. These peoples’ lives are organized in accordance with religious practices. Polish Catholics have a new dilemma now - after the change of the political system their attitude towards life and especially towards sex started to become more “European”. Once puritans, they are now becoming hedonistic. And try to combine their sexuality and the dogmatic teaching of the Church, where most of what is pleasant is banned. The riddle seems to be insoluble.
XL
Marta, young fat woman strives to find acceptance, love, and ultimately, a permanent life partner and i order to achieve this created a so called FWFLM (“Fat Women Liberation Movement”) which changed her life… Imagine a food store and a short, fat young woman whose name is Marta sneaking in with a pink envelope in her hand. The envelope contains a letter she has just written… Marta stands on her toes, puts the envelope on the counter… and runs away. This is a scene that I remember from Marta’s diary, which I found on her webb.site: XL-pozytywnie.pl. where we can read than being fat is considered positive. Sorry, not being “fat” but… “fluffy” because everything published there must sound positive. The film which we want to make about Marta and her activity is not going to be another sad tale about the problems of fat people. It is a success story of a strong woman turning her weakness into strength. Had she lived 20 or 30 years ago, she would’ve been a Commissar, running a Party Organisation in Communist Poland. Today she is the head of the so called, Fat Women Liberation Movement she has created. The web-page www.XL-pozytywnie was started and is being run by Marta in order to reach fluffy people all over Poland. There are articles about health, medical treatment, shops with food and clothing for fluffy people, fashion, an internet chat and forum where people can get to know each other and exchange information about their troubles. It seems the most difficult problems fat, young women face is when they start adult life and encounter emotional and sexual challenges. We find all this described very frankly in Marta’s intimate diary published on the page. She writes about her problems with puberty and difficulties in her teenage years also the emotional rejection by her father who did not want to have a fat daughter. Seeking love and acceptance she started dating boys and soon she discovered that it always ended the same way - as a one night stand with a bitter taste after Neither special diets nor starving or fasting helped – her body stayed fat. And finally she managed to persuade herself to accept herself and her body. The recipe is simple: you have to like yourself – your body is beautiful whether it is fat or thin. Soon she had a “normal” i.e. slim boy-friend, got pregnant but found that the man she lived with was not ideal. They split up. And one day, shopping in a food store Marta saw a plump young man, Ernest - and fell in love with him. She understood that she had found what she had been looking for, for a long time. She decided she wanted to marry him. She wrote him a love letter and started dating Ernest, hiding from him that she was pregnant... Her fatness helped her once more. She pretended to go abroad and gave birth to a child. And then she plucked up courage and explained everything to Ernest… and they started living together and got married. But Marta is a born leader so she cannot live only as a wife and mother. She helps other fluffy women to improve their quality of life. She teaches them how to avoid problems or to solve them. She invented a special therapy called photo-therapy. She takes a girl who believes that she is completely unattractive, dresses her beautifully, makes her up and takes photographs, Then she publishes them on the webb.site – and this helps the duckling to become a beautiful swan. She organizes fashion shows for fat women and plans for her webb.site to be in Eglish also. This will help her to establish international contacts with similar organizations and individual fluffy people in neighboring countries. The problem of fatness is common for all the post-communist states that entered the free market economy. People suddenly have access to all the food they want. Unfortunately this is often junk food and so the problem of obesity is becoming more widespread. One may ask why I – a slim man is tackling this issue. Can a thin man like myself ever understand the trauma of fluffy women? My answer is simple. Fat people are like us and they need love and tenderness as we do – and watching them we can see ourselves and our emotional problems more sharply and maybe learn how to solve them.
Secret Identity
During the Second World War, the Third Reich managed to change Poland into a country of annihilation for approximately six million Jewish people. This unprecedented act of mass genocide, mainly in Eastern Europe, was the consequence of hundreds of years of racism and anti-Semitic propaganda. Almost 90% of the Jewish community was murdered, including some who weren’t practicing Judaism, as well as others who didn’t even have contact with the religion. Hitler’s aim was to exterminate the whole nation. Only a small minority of the Jewish community in Poland survived the Holocaust. It appears that many survivors changed their surnames to blend into the Polish community. After the war, some continued to use their ‘Aryan’ documents and never confessed the truth, even to their own children. More than sixty years after the Second World War, the children of Jewish people who survived the Nazi occupation of Poland still keep their true identity secret. They continue to use assumed identities and Polish names. Bartosz Węglarczyk is a person who discovered the truth about his family origins as an adult. He started examining the past – discovering an emotional story of broken lives, personal tragedies and trauma which goes through generations.
The Battle with Satan
One day Sister Avila, the school’s religious teacher, who teaches Agnieszka religion, informed the parents that their daughter is ‘possessed’ by a Demon.With parental permission Agnieszka is subjected to exorcisms. Her shocked parents say that any doubts which they might have had regarding Agnieszka’s ‘possession’ evaporated when they see what happens to her during the exorcisms; it is no longer their daughter, but a Demon fighting the dutiful priests. They describe the situation: everyone is praying faithfully for the deliverance from Satan, Agnieszka is lying on the floor, the priests are forcefully restraining her, she howls with an inhuman voice. Luckily after an hour of prayer the defeated devil resigns and departs Agnieszka’s abused body – the now calm girl can go back home with her parents. Next week she will return for further exorcisms, which he has been submitting to for two years now. So far there are no positive signs of the prayers for deliverance. Agenieszka is becoming increasingly nervous, she is more frequently talking about ‘Him’ – who sometimes rules her body and mind. Sister Avila has made sure, that the neither the parents nor the teachers consider taking Agnieszka to a psychiatrist, as this would only make matters worse – since the ‘issue’ is ‘possession’, a spiritual problem, not some psychiatric illness. Will the exorcists manage to help Agnieszka, or will she seek help through seeing a doctor or psychiatrist? Will Agnieszka finally return to normal life?
Marta, young fat woman strives to find acceptance, love, and ultimately, a permanent life partner and i order to achieve this created a so called FWFLM (“Fat Women Liberation Movement”) which changed her life… Imagine a food store and a short, fat young woman whose name is Marta sneaking in with a pink envelope in her hand. The envelope contains a letter she has just written… Marta stands on her toes, puts the envelope on the counter… and runs away. This is a scene that I remember from Marta’s diary, which I found on her webb.site: XL-pozytywnie.pl. where we can read than being fat is considered positive. Sorry, not being “fat” but… “fluffy” because everything published there must sound positive. The film which we want to make about Marta and her activity is not going to be another sad tale about the problems of fat people. It is a success story of a strong woman turning her weakness into strength. Had she lived 20 or 30 years ago, she would’ve been a Commissar, running a Party Organisation in Communist Poland. Today she is the head of the so called, Fat Women Liberation Movement she has created. The web-page www.XL-pozytywnie was started and is being run by Marta in order to reach fluffy people all over Poland. There are articles about health, medical treatment, shops with food and clothing for fluffy people, fashion, an internet chat and forum where people can get to know each other and exchange information about their troubles. It seems the most difficult problems fat, young women face is when they start adult life and encounter emotional and sexual challenges. We find all this described very frankly in Marta’s intimate diary published on the page. She writes about her problems with puberty and difficulties in her teenage years also the emotional rejection by her father who did not want to have a fat daughter. Seeking love and acceptance she started dating boys and soon she discovered that it always ended the same way - as a one night stand with a bitter taste after Neither special diets nor starving or fasting helped – her body stayed fat. And finally she managed to persuade herself to accept herself and her body. The recipe is simple: you have to like yourself – your body is beautiful whether it is fat or thin. Soon she had a “normal” i.e. slim boy-friend, got pregnant but found that the man she lived with was not ideal. They split up. And one day, shopping in a food store Marta saw a plump young man, Ernest - and fell in love with him. She understood that she had found what she had been looking for, for a long time. She decided she wanted to marry him. She wrote him a love letter and started dating Ernest, hiding from him that she was pregnant... Her fatness helped her once more. She pretended to go abroad and gave birth to a child. And then she plucked up courage and explained everything to Ernest… and they started living together and got married. But Marta is a born leader so she cannot live only as a wife and mother. She helps other fluffy women to improve their quality of life. She teaches them how to avoid problems or to solve them. She invented a special therapy called photo-therapy. She takes a girl who believes that she is completely unattractive, dresses her beautifully, makes her up and takes photographs, Then she publishes them on the webb.site – and this helps the duckling to become a beautiful swan. She organizes fashion shows for fat women and plans for her webb.site to be in Eglish also. This will help her to establish international contacts with similar organizations and individual fluffy people in neighboring countries. The problem of fatness is common for all the post-communist states that entered the free market economy. People suddenly have access to all the food they want. Unfortunately this is often junk food and so the problem of obesity is becoming more widespread. One may ask why I – a slim man is tackling this issue. Can a thin man like myself ever understand the trauma of fluffy women? My answer is simple. Fat people are like us and they need love and tenderness as we do – and watching them we can see ourselves and our emotional problems more sharply and maybe learn how to solve them.
Secret Identity
During the Second World War, the Third Reich managed to change Poland into a country of annihilation for approximately six million Jewish people. This unprecedented act of mass genocide, mainly in Eastern Europe, was the consequence of hundreds of years of racism and anti-Semitic propaganda. Almost 90% of the Jewish community was murdered, including some who weren’t practicing Judaism, as well as others who didn’t even have contact with the religion. Hitler’s aim was to exterminate the whole nation. Only a small minority of the Jewish community in Poland survived the Holocaust. It appears that many survivors changed their surnames to blend into the Polish community. After the war, some continued to use their ‘Aryan’ documents and never confessed the truth, even to their own children. More than sixty years after the Second World War, the children of Jewish people who survived the Nazi occupation of Poland still keep their true identity secret. They continue to use assumed identities and Polish names. Bartosz Węglarczyk is a person who discovered the truth about his family origins as an adult. He started examining the past – discovering an emotional story of broken lives, personal tragedies and trauma which goes through generations.
The Battle with Satan
One day Sister Avila, the school’s religious teacher, who teaches Agnieszka religion, informed the parents that their daughter is ‘possessed’ by a Demon.With parental permission Agnieszka is subjected to exorcisms. Her shocked parents say that any doubts which they might have had regarding Agnieszka’s ‘possession’ evaporated when they see what happens to her during the exorcisms; it is no longer their daughter, but a Demon fighting the dutiful priests. They describe the situation: everyone is praying faithfully for the deliverance from Satan, Agnieszka is lying on the floor, the priests are forcefully restraining her, she howls with an inhuman voice. Luckily after an hour of prayer the defeated devil resigns and departs Agnieszka’s abused body – the now calm girl can go back home with her parents. Next week she will return for further exorcisms, which he has been submitting to for two years now. So far there are no positive signs of the prayers for deliverance. Agenieszka is becoming increasingly nervous, she is more frequently talking about ‘Him’ – who sometimes rules her body and mind. Sister Avila has made sure, that the neither the parents nor the teachers consider taking Agnieszka to a psychiatrist, as this would only make matters worse – since the ‘issue’ is ‘possession’, a spiritual problem, not some psychiatric illness. Will the exorcists manage to help Agnieszka, or will she seek help through seeing a doctor or psychiatrist? Will Agnieszka finally return to normal life?
Graduated from the Warsaw University, (MA in Polish Language and Literature), took courses at the State Theatrical School in Warsaw. Worked as a freelance film critic 1975-1979. Graduated from the Silesian University (MA in film directing). Worked for Polish Radio and Television, writing and directing plays and films. From 1985 to 1987 attended the National Film and Television School, Beaconsfield, England. Also took part in Equinoxe script workshop in Beyschevelle in 1996 (the script: Operation GOAT) and Sundance Film Institute in Budapest in 1998 (the script: The Faith-Healer) and Arista Development in Sirolo (Accidental John Doe) in Sirolo, Italy in 2005. Selected films and TV shows: Dziennikarze '82 (Reporters Under Martial Law) - 15 minute documentary, 1983, Jajo (Egg) - 50 minute TV feature film, 1984; Welcome to Britain - 25 minute feature film, 1987; Pan inspektor przyszedł (J.B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls) - 60 minute TV play, 1988; Czerwony kapturek (Little Red Riding Hood) - 30 minute TV show, 1990; Człowiek z... (The Man of...) - 105 minute feature film, theatrically released in 1993, shown by ARTE TV France; Parafia Księdza Kustosza (The Parish of Father Custodian) - 25 minute documentary, 1993; Opowieść o smoku wawelskim (A Dragon Tale) - 30 minute TV film, 1994; Tajemnica grobu Witkacego (The Mystery of Witkacy's Grave) - 30 min documentary, 1995; Nowa opowieść o prawdziwym człowieku (There Was a Sex-shop Keeper...), 25 min documentary, 1996; Sceny z życia kick-boxerki (She Kick-boxer), 22 min documentary 1997; Dziennikarze (David Williamson’s Sons of Cain) - 60 min TV play, 1997; Musisz żyć (You Must Live), 90 min feature, 1997; Pani od seksu (Sex Teacher), 30 min documentary, 1998; Operacja KOZA (Operation GOAT), 95 minute feature, theatrically released in 2000; Klub przyjaciół Stasia i Nel (Staś and Nel friends), program for children, 2001; Sztuka kochania według Wisłockiej (The Art of Love-making), 27 minute documentary, 2001; Zawód: posłanka (She-MP), 27 minute, documentary, 2002, Alwernia (Alwernia), 54 minute TV film, 2004, Pogrzeby to nasze życie (Funeral People), 50 minute, documentary, 2004, Kurhan (Tumulus), 9 minute, documentary, 2004.
•2011 - KOP GŁĘBIEJ Director, Script •2010 - UWO Director, Script, Producer•2010 - PODRYW PO POLSKU Director, Script, Producer•2010 - NIEJEDZENIE Director, Script•2009 - GOOD MORNING, LENIN! Director, Script, Producer•2006 - WKRĘCACZE Director, Script, Producer•2006 - PARAFIA KSIĘDZA KUSTOSZA Realization, Script•2006 - GRUBA DO ŁÓŻKA, CHUDA NA BAL... Director, Script•2004 - POGRZEBY TO NASZE ŻYCIE Director, Script•2004 - ALWERNIA Director, Script•2003 - OPROWADZĘ WAS PO MOIM ŚWIECIE Director, Script•2002 - ZAWÓD: POSŁANKA Director, Script, Producer•2001 - SZTUKA KOCHANIA WEDŁUG WISŁOCKIEJ Realization, Script•2000 - TAJEMNICE STAREGO DOMU (2) w O CZYM SZUMIĄ KIERPCE Director•1999 - OPERACJA "KOZA" Director, Script, Producer•1998 - PANI OD SEKSU Director, Script•1997 - SCENY Z ŻYCIA KICK-BOKSERKI Director, Script•1997 - MUSISZ ŻYĆ Director, Script, Dialogues•1996 - NOWA OPOWIEŚĆ O PRAWDZIWYM CZŁOWIEKU Director, Script•1995 - ZDZICZENIE OBYCZAJÓW POŚMIERTNYCH Realization, Script•1995 - CAŁY POGRZEB NA NIC! Realization, Script•1995 - BONDOLOGIA STOSOWANA Director, Script•1994 - KOMIKSIARZE Director, Script•1993 - CZŁOWIEK Z... Director, Script •1987-1988 - JEŻ KLEOFAS Script, Dialogues•1984 - JAJO Director, Script, Dialogues•1983 - FABRYKA (Sikora Rafał) Script•1982 - SAD Script•1981 - CIEŃ (1981) Co-director
ZK Studio
ul. Hoża 29/31 lok. 56
00-521 Warsaw
ul. Hoża 29/31 lok. 56
00-521 Warsaw