Agnieszka Holland

Agnieszka Holland, a film and television director and screenwriter born in Poland, is considered one of her country’s most prominent filmmakers and is widely recognized for her politically charged contributions to the new wave of Polish cinema. She graduated from the Film and Television Academy in Prague (FAMU) in 1971 and began her career as an assistant to Krzysztof Zanussi and Andrzej Wajda. Shortly before 1981, she emigrated to France and later participated as a script consultant on Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colors trilogy (1993-1994). Her most emblematic work is Europa Europa (1991), and she is also the author of In Darkness, nominated for an Oscar in 2011. In 2017, she received the Alfred Bauer Prize (Silver Bear) for Spoor at the Berlinale. Her recent works include Mr. Jones (2019), about the Ukrainian famine of the 1930s, and Green Border (2023), about the migration crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border, which premiered in Venice and won the Special Jury Prize. In addition to her film career, Holland has directed episodes of series such as The Wire, The Killing, and House of Cards. In 2025, she released Franz, a biopic about Franz Kafka, in the Official Selection of the San Sebastian Film Festival, reaffirming his relevance in major international competitions.