Andrzej Munk

Andrzej Munk (1921-1961) was a screenwriter and filmmaker and one of the most influential directors of postwar Polish cinema. Although he completed only three feature films before his tragic early death in a traffic collision, he is recognised as one of the founding figures of the so-called Polish Film School, alongside Andrzej Wajda and others. Born into a Jewish family, Munk was forced into hiding during the war, in which time he took part in the doomed Warsaw Uprising against Nazi occupation. His early filmmaking experience was in documentaries, and he carried a bracing, anti-idealistic worldview over into his fictional efforts. His three completed features – Man on the Tracks (1956), Eroica (1958), Bad Luck (1960) – have proved highly influential. Munk was travelling back from Auschwitz during preparation for his unfinished fourth film, Passenger, when he died.