As part of the 27th Ann Arbor Polish Film Festival (AAPFF), acclaimed Polish film director Agnieszka Holland returns to the University of Michigan to deliver her second Annual Copernicus Lecture, an interview with Johannes von Moltke, professor of Germanic languages and literatures and of film, television and media, and acting director of the Weiser Center for Europe & Eurasia, U-M; and Benjamin Paloff, associate professor of Slavic languages and literatures and of comparative literature, and acting director of the Copernicus Center for Polish Studies, U-M.

Agnieszka Holland is justly famous for the way in which her films tackle “the perversely captivating 20th century,” as she put it, in all of its complexity. She has devoted her talents as a filmmaker to thoughtful explorations of fascism and communism, their aftermaths, and their lasting effects on those who were caught up in the political, moral, and ethical decisions that these regimes demanded of everyone in their orbit. In this hour-long interview, Agnieszka Holland discusses the role of history and politics in her filmmaking, her interest in characters who face difficult moral dilemmas, her work in Europe and Hollywood, her most recent film Charlatan (2019), and her desire to help shape a “cinema of the middle” by making thoughtful, artistic films with broad popular appeal.

Agnieszka Holland was born in Warsaw and graduated from FAMU, the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. Upon her return to Poland she joined the group of promising young Polish directors, “the filmmakers of moral unrest,” associated with Andrzej Wajda. Her early Polish films earned her a great deal of critical acclaim, but Holland is best-known for her Academy Award-nominated films Angry Harvest (Best Foreign Language Film 1985), Europa Europa (Best Screenplay 1990), and In Darkness (Best Foreign Language Film 2011). Recent films include Spoor (Pokot), based on a novel by Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk; Mr. Jones; and Charlatan. As a screenwriter, Holland collaborated with Krzysztof Kieślowski (Three Colours, 1993), and wrote several scripts for her mentor, Andrzej Wajda. She has worked extensively in television, directing episodes of The Wire and Treme, for which she received an Emmy nomination in 2009. Recently she directed and produced the pilots for The First (Hulu), and 1983 (Netflix).

The Annual Copernicus Lecture is presented as part of the 27th Ann Arbor Polish Film Festival. While the festival requires tickets, the lecture will be broadcast at no charge. More information at https://www.annarborpolishfilmfestival.com/.