Żuławski is a creature of extreme experience. For him, there is no edge, only the abyss…No other filmmaker has gone so far in creating his own personal outland.” – Michael Atkinson, Film Comment
Often compared to Andrei Tarkovsky and David Lynch, the films of Andrzej Żuławski (1940–2016) combine a hallucinatory vision with a taste for stories informed by historical and sociological insight. Starting out in Communist 1970s Poland, the young director’s early films were routinely banned, leading to his eventual emigration to France, where he rose to prominence with 1975’s THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS TO LOVE, starring Romy Schneider. His scandalous 1981 film POSSESSION — despite its exploitation credentials, a film very much about Cold War politics — went on to become an international cult classic. Żuławski died in 2016, having recently completed his final film COSMOS after a 15-year absence from filmmaking. This mini-retrospective collects some of his earliest and most significant films, all in new DCP transfers.
IN MEMORIAM: Andrzej Żuławski (1940–2016)
AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center
8633 Colesville Rd
Silver Spring, MD
http://afi.com/silver/
