Maciej Barczewski

Maciej Barczewski is a remarkable figure on the Polish film scene, a director, screenwriter, and producer who combines two seemingly distant fields: law and cinematography. Born in 1977, the director is also a law professor specializing in intellectual property law at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Gdańsk. His passion for film led him to the Gdynia Film School.

“Due to the film, I have minimized my legal practice. However, my creative activity largely goes hand in hand with my academic work. Contrary to appearances, the nature of both these professions is essentially similar and is based on creative and analytical intellectual work. Copyright law, in which I specialize, focuses precisely on the protection of creative activities, including film. Being a lecturer and researcher is an everyday job, whereas being on a film set happens once every few years. That’s why many directors successfully balance academic work with artistic work. Besides, law has never been an obligation for me but a passion, just like the art of film,” explained Barczewski after the premiere of the film “Champion.”

His directorial debut was the short film “My Pretty Pony” from 2017, an adaptation of a Stephen King story. The main roles were played by Marian Dziędziel and Mateusz Broda. The film tells the story of an elderly man who, on a hillside among apple trees, talks with his grandson about the passage of time, giving him a pocket watch and teaching him about transience. “Kucyk” is an intimate, moving story about family relationships that received acclaim from critics and audiences at film festivals in Los Angeles and London. Barczewski not only directed the film but also was the screenwriter, producer, and editor.

In the same year that “My Pretty Pony” was made, Barczewski became involved as a co-producer in the film “The Best”, a major commercial and artistic success inspired by the life of Jerzy Górski, who completed a death race and set a world record in the triathlon world championships, winning the title of champion on the Double Ironman distance.

A breakthrough in Barczewski’s career was the year 2020, when he made his debut as the director of a feature film, “Champion.” The film tells the story of Tadeusz “Teddy” Pietrzykowski, a prisoner of Auschwitz-Birkenau, who, thanks to his boxing skills, became a champion of all the inmates of the Nazi concentration camp. The inspiration for the film came from words by Tadeusz Borowski about prisoner number 77, who “fought the Germans as he wished, taking revenge in the ring for what others received in the field.” Piotr Głowacki starred in the lead role.

The action of “Champion” takes place between 1940 and 1943. The time frame is marked by Pietrzykowski’s arrival at Auschwitz (in the first transport) and his subsequent transfer to the Neuengamme camp in Hamburg. Teddy tries to survive in the camp by taking on work assignments. Inevitably, this often involves removing the bodies of Jews deemed unfit for work and sent directly to the gas chamber upon arrival at the camp. When a German officer recognizes Teddy from his pre-war boxing career, an opportunity arises for the protagonist to fight in a makeshift ring for the entertainment of bored German soldiers. When he wins his first match through exceptional dodging skills, he receives an extra loaf of bread and begins sharing it with others. He bonds with a teenage boy named Janek (Jan Szydłowski), who, like him, manages to survive under these inhumane conditions through his own resilience.

“Many people affected by the tragedy of World War II had to carry it and go on living. What struck me about Tadeusz Pietrzykowski’s attitude was how much his generation valued widely understood principles. He was a direct support to the prisoners because, for each fight, he was rewarded by the SS with loaves of bread and blocks of margarine. That’s why he used his fights as a sort of modus operandi to obtain food and share it with prisoners for whom it was otherwise unreachable. He simply shared his food with them,” Barczewski explained, speaking about his character.

“If you are not familiar with Pietrzykowski’s story beforehand, watching the film is accompanied by genuine tension and hope that this decent man, played with great physical skill and dignity by Piotr Głowacki, will survive,” wrote a reviewer for The Guardian.

“Pietrzykowski, like the biblical David, fought on the camp’s arena against Goliath, just as each of us struggles daily with life’s adversities,” the director explained after the premiere. “The fact that he fought his battles under the most difficult conditions, in the worst time and place in the world, and continued to win despite everything, gives us all hope that there is no obstacle or adversity that cannot ultimately be overcome. Loftily speaking, we are all warriors in the ring of our own lives. The on-screen portrayal of Pietrzykowski reminds us that even if all hope seems to fade, we should never lose it and must keep fighting, even in the bleakest circumstances.”

Just like in the case of his short debut, Barczewski himself wrote the screenplay for “Champion.” During interviews with journalists, he referred to his family experience related to the extermination camp: “My grandfather was a prisoner at Auschwitz-Birkenau. I lived under the same roof with him for many years. So, the Auschwitz theme was, in a sense, part of my family’s bloodline. When I thought about what I wanted to make my feature debut about, I realized it would be meaningful to tell a story set in a place that was so deeply embedded in my mind and heart.”

The film received critical acclaim and was popular with audiences, winning the KRRiT award and the audience award at the International Film Festival in Wroclaw. “Champion” was also recognized internationally, with reviewers from The Guardian and The Times praising it for its authenticity and emotional impact.

In 2024, Barczewski surprised viewers by directing the film “Super Sister,” described as a Polish superhero film. “Ala (Katarzyna Gałązka) and Lena (Karolina Bruchnicka), forcibly taken from their parents by the communist authorities, as children became a dangerous weapon that the Cold War world could only dream of. In the eyes of the mission’s leader, Colonel (Marek Kalita), they were not children but mere objects of scientific research—nothing more than tempting hope in the nuclear arms race,” reads a review on filmweb.pl. “The rebellious hero against the system turns out to be an empathetic scientist (Grzegorz Damięcki), who will have to save only one of them—the gravity-manipulating young girl, Ala. Years pass, and the unaware girl grows up under the care of a foster father, not even remembering she has a sister. ‘Don’t draw attention to yourself,’ she repeatedly hears from her father, who is deeply concerned about the fate of his ‘gifted’ daughter. But, as is often the case in superhero movies, evil never sleeps and lurks in the shadows, ready to attack the protagonist at the most unexpected moment.”

The altruism of the girl prevents her from remaining incognito. When a teenage stalker—Dżester (Tymoteusz Frączek), who is being persecuted by his father, an alcoholic—appears on the horizon, Ala—much like Eleven from Stranger Things saving Mike from bullies—prevents further escalation of violence (don’t worry, that’s just the tip of the iceberg of references to the Netflix series). Post-communist thugs track down the girl, who, fleeing from Colonel, miraculously reunites with her long-lost older sister along with Dżester, who is accompanying her.

“Right from the first scene, it’s clear that the team behind ‘Super Sister’ didn’t consist of exhausted, poorly paid CGI specialists doing forced overtime. Ultimately, the visual effects are handled by the international studio MAGIC LAB, which has in its portfolio films by Guy Ritchie (‘Aladdin,’ ‘The Gentlemen’) and ‘Argylle – Secret Spy.’ Along with the director and rest of the crew, they faced quite a challenge because, by our standards, it’s a very spectacular production. The greatest test for it is the scenes where Ala throws a military truck into the air or when Lena takes on a horde of soldiers. Combining practical and digital special effects yields stunning results,” praises the reviewer from spidersweb.pl for the film’s standout visual side compared to other Polish productions.

Currently, the director plans to return to biographical cinema inspired by real events and is working on a documentary series about artificial intelligence. Several years ago, Barczewski used AI tools to create an English-language version of the film “Champion.” In collaboration with a team of scientists from the USA, Australia, and Israel, pioneering AI technology was employed to synchronously substitute the actors’ voices in English while maintaining the natural movement of their lips and facial expressions. This allowed the film to reach international markets, including the USA, without the need for subtitles. It was the first application of such AI technology in the production of a feature film, which attracted interest not only from the international film community but also from the tech industry.