Polish - Director | September 15, 1957 -
I come from a magnetic field of Catholicism. I was baptised by my mother's family, who were all traditional Catholics. But my mother was the black sheep of the family - she ran away to the ballet at 17.
Pawel Pawlikowski
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Just by my home is an entrance to the sewers they used in the Warsaw uprising. I grew up knowing people died down there. Warsaw was once a battleground; then it became a morgue. It's a city littered with ghosts. And that never left me.
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'Ida' doesn't set out to explain history. That's not what it's about. The story is focused on very concrete and complex characters who are full of humanity with all its paradoxes. They're not pawns used to illustrate some version of history or an ideology.
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I'm not emotionally excited by the power of cinema's tricks anymore.
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I don't know what directing actors is all about apart from just casting well and then shaping their performances a bit, you know.
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'Ida' is about humanity, about guilt and forgiveness. It's not a film that deals with an issue as such. It's more universal.
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The whole world, it's a problem that there's too much stuff being produced. We don't have time to reflect on the important things in life.
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It's wonderful that Poland is free again and there's open debate and people can pursue their interests. I'm all for it.
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I grew up in a secular environment, you know, in the '60s and '70s. My mother's family was Catholic, but you know, just very kind of conventionally Catholic. You know, nothing - there was nothing, you know, extreme about their version of religion. And my father was a free spirit, you know? He had no time for religion at all.
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Strangely, you know, my parents, who left Poland separately and, you know, divorced, ended up marrying other people. But then they met again abroad, and they got together again.
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One of my favorite writers is Chekhov. I love his attitude toward the world. Just accept things for what they are. Don't judge. Be moral as you tell your story, but have no moral at the end. Just look at it.
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The documentaries I made were never normal documentaries. They were about subjects I was obsessed with, and I suppose I thought I could sculpt them. What I think I do with my fiction is the same.
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