Abstract

There has been a recent revival of interest in the work of Polish film director Walerian Borowczyk, a label-defying auteur and “escape artist” if there ever was one. This collection serves as an introduction and a guide to Borowczyk’s complex and ambiguous body of work, including panoramic views of the director’s output, focused studies of particular movies, and more personal, impressionistic pieces. Taken together, these contributions comprise a wide-ranging survey that is markedly experimental in character, allowing scholars to gain insight into previously unnoticed aspects of Borowczyk’s oeuvre.

Kuba Mikurda teaches at the Film School in Łódź, Poland, and is a film critic, curator, and broadcaster. He is series editor of “Linia Filmowa” for Korporacja Ha!art Press, with whom he recently published Corpus Delicti in collaboration with Jakub Woynarowski (2013). He is currently working on a documentary film about Walerian Borowczyk.

“The contributors to this collection use new archival sources to provide a comprehensive map of Boro’s career and to reestablish his place in the history of Polish and European avant-garde and art cinema.  All the essays are well informed and clearly written; collectively, they provide valuable insights into Boro's often puzzling, sometimes scandalous motivations and productions.” · Choice

“…a thought-provoking collection of different essays commenting on the life and films of a renowned Polish film director, Walerian Borowczyk… One of the strengths of this book is that the authors of the essays link Borowczyk’s artistic output with the social and artistic environment of Poland in which he grew up, and of France, where he spent most of his adult life.” · Slavic Review

Kamila Kuc is Post-doctoral Researcher in New Media at and Goldsmiths College, University of London, as well as a writer, curator, and experimental filmmaker. Her most recent publication is The Struggle for Form: Perspectives on Polish Avant-Garde Film 1916–1989 (Wallflower Press, 2014), co-edited with Michael O’Pray.