Łukasz Grzegorzek

He wants to make films on his own terms. In his work, he tries to avoid falsehood and artificiality. He likes to draw on what he knows well and to use his own experiences as creative material. So far, he has made films with a regular team of close collaborators, a group of filmmakers he intends to return to for future projects.

“One could say that he entered the world of cinema through the back door” — this is how Tadeusz Sobolewski once described Łukasz Grzegorzek in Gazeta Wyborcza. In that case, it is worth adding that he was not entering through that door as a relative of Mariusz Grzegorzek—the similarity of their surnames is purely coincidental.

Łukasz Grzegorzek began writing his first screenplays during his second year of law studies. In his first job at a law firm, he quickly realized that it was not the right place for him. What truly attracted him was storytelling.

“I was never one of those future directors who watched a Bergman film and decided it had changed their entire life. I simply always wanted to speak about subjects that affected me directly. Grand narratives did not interest me; I preferred stories that were happening around me. Besides, people often tell me that I think too much, that I constantly look back into the past. Cinema allowed me to turn that flaw into an advantage,” he said in an interview published in Przegląd Weekly.

His debut feature Kamper was hailed by critics as the voice of a generation of thirty-somethings and as one of the most interesting debuts in Polish cinema in recent years.

He considered applying to film school, but at the same time felt that he needed more time to be certain about the direction in which he wanted to develop. After graduating, he began working in television, producing documentary reports. A little later, he moved on to directing music videos, commercials, and television promotional spots.

When he started working on his first feature film, he was repeatedly told that this was not how films were made. Casting sessions and a film set located in his own apartment? A film financed with money he had saved from working in advertising? Grzegorzek not only proved that it could be done—Kamper was hailed by critics as the voice of a generation of thirty-somethings and one of the most interesting debuts in Polish cinema in recent years.

Even so, when working on subsequent films, he and his wife, producer Natalia Grzegorzek, continued to hear the same doubts.

“Have you lost your minds? You want to tell a story about the here and now, and on top of that a fictional one? That’s pure quixotism! No one will be interested in it, and it certainly won’t sell!” the director recalled in a conversation with Piotr Guszkowski.

When speaking about Kamper, A Coach’s Daughter, and My Wonderful Life, Grzegorzek often refers to them as “our films.” All three were produced by the aforementioned Natalia Grzegorzek, while the cinematography on each of them was created by Weronika Bilska.

“Weronika is, artistically, one of the people closest to me (…) I am very sensitive to what Weronika says and to the way she responds to characters and stories. We see the world in a very similar way and constantly try to inspire one another,” the director said in an interview published on filmawka.pl.

When speaking about their three feature films together, director Łukasz Grzegorzek and producer Natalia Grzegorzek often refer to them as a “family trilogy.”

The screenplays for the first two films were co-written by Grzegorzek and Krzysztof Umiński, a literary translator, while the editing of the latter two was handled by Maria Zuba. It is also clear that the director becomes attached to his actors: Jacek Braciak has appeared in every one of his films, while Agata Buzek, Karolina Bruchnicka, and Piotr Żurawski have each appeared in two. At the same time, the director has a talent for attracting unexpected collaborators, such as Jaromír Nohavica, who in My Wonderful Life played the Bartender and performed songs made famous by Zbigniew Wodecki and Maryla Rodowicz.

The director and producer often describe these three feature films as a “family trilogy,” although at first glance they appear to be three completely different works.

The first, Kamper (2016), was initially financed with the Grzegorzeks’ own money. Later, after the first rough cuts were assembled, the film secured co-producers and support from the Polish Film Institute. Shot largely in the couple’s own apartment, it is an intimate drama about a marital crisis experienced by two thirty-somethings, the titular Kamper and his wife Mania. Described by some critics as a mumblecore film, it was widely hailed as a portrait of a generation—the contemporaries of its protagonists.

Grzegorzek’s second film premiered only two years after his debut. The screenplay for A Coach’s Daughter, which seamlessly combines elements of family drama, sports film, and road movie, is based primarily on the director’s personal experiences. Grzegorzek openly admits that for many years he was “a coach’s son.” From the age of five, under the watchful eye of his father, a former volleyball player, he trained in tennis. He achieved considerable success, winning several medals at the Polish Championships, but gave up the prospect of a professional career after his third year of high school. As he says himself, he became very familiar with the realities that exist in the antechamber of professional tennis.

The film’s main character, Maciej Kornet, played by Jacek Braciak, is largely based on the director’s father. As usual, however, Grzegorzek refrains from criticizing or passing judgment on his protagonist. He admits that while working on the film, his primary goal was to better understand his father.

Why did he choose not to focus on the relationship between a father-coach and a son-tennis player? He explained it well in an interview with Mateusz Demski (tygodnikprzeglad.pl):

“Women are more interesting on the tennis court. The most toxic relationships in the world of tennis tend to occur between young female players and their fathers. This has always been true—not only at the national level, but also among those who have reached the very summit of the sport. Whether we look at Caroline Wozniacki, Mary Pierce, the Williams sisters, Agnieszka Radwańska, or Steffi Graf, the relationship with a father-coach always has an interesting dynamic. Sometimes a brutal one. Andre Agassi even referred to his father-in-law, Steffi Graf’s father, as ‘Papa Merciless.’”

Three years later, the New Horizons Festival in Wrocław once again opened with a Grzegorzek film—My Wonderful Life. The filmmakers describe it as a kind of conclusion to their “family trilogy.” For the first time, the director served as the sole screenwriter and drew extensively on his own memories, reflections, observations, and experiences.

The story is set in Nysa, Grzegorzek’s hometown, and a large portion of the action takes place in the school he himself attended. The role of Leon, the youngest child in the protagonists’ family, was played by the director’s own son.

In the leading roles are Agata Buzek and Jacek Braciak (both received awards for Best Actress and Best Actor at the Off Camera Festival in Kraków; Agata Buzek also won the Polish Film Award, the Eagle, for Best Leading Actress). They play a married couple—she, Jo, teaches English at the school where her husband serves as principal. The crisis between them gradually comes to light, but in a very different way than in the debut feature Kamper. This time, the crisis is not isolated from its social context, nor is it free from family ties and entanglements.

The relationship between husband and wife in My Wonderful Life is just one of many relationships through which we observe the protagonists. Jo is the mother of two sons, a wife, the daughter of a mother suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, a grandmother, a mother-in-law, a teacher, and finally a lover. Or perhaps the order of that list should be reversed? Of all the families portrayed in Grzegorzek’s films—the young married couple in Kamper and the father-and-teenage-daughter duo in A Coach’s Daughter—the multi-generational family living under one roof in My Wonderful Life appears closest to the common, stereotypical, and yet already somewhat outdated notion of “family.” That does not mean, however, that Grzegorzek depicts this arrangement in a stereotypical way. On the contrary, as in his earlier films, the characters are never artificial, formulaic, or one-dimensional. The camera attentively records the small situations, gestures, and habits of everyday life, and from these details a broader picture gradually emerges—one that is far removed from stereotypical assumptions.

Although family relationships are the central subject of Grzegorzek’s films, there is no place in them for excessive psychologizing, melodrama, or moralizing.

Grzegorzek challenges clichés and reveals how strongly they shape our perception of reality. He himself often emphasizes that he cannot stand the widespread tendency among Poles to judge everyone and everything around them. In one interview, he openly admitted that his third film grew directly out of his disagreement with, and inner rebellion against, this culture of constant judgment and condemnation.

One of the characters who breaks free from many such conventions is the protagonist, brilliantly portrayed by Agata Buzek. Overwhelmed by the expectations attached to her many social roles, she nevertheless does not forget her own needs and carefully protects her personal boundaries, even though doing so requires enormous effort. Equally distant from conventional stereotypes is Maciek, the lover played by Adam Woronowicz.

Grzegorzek is careful not to cast the women in his films as victims. It is more often the men who appear helpless, passive, constrained by social conventions and by a rigid, fossilized way of thinking about themselves. The director observes this with curiosity and humor, but never mocks or condemns. Every one of his characters is granted the possibility of understanding.

Interestingly, although family relationships are the main subject of Grzegorzek’s films, there is no room for excessive psychologizing, melodrama, or a moralizing tone. The director frequently gives a voice to popular music. Song lyrics help complete a situation or define a character’s emotional state while at the same time allowing him to avoid banality in dialogue.

At the same time, Grzegorzek’s cinematic narratives are never cold or detached. He tells stories lightly and with humor. He does not preach; instead, he devotes great attention to the details that shape his characters and situations. He is unafraid of what is strange, exceptional, or outside what is commonly regarded as “normal.” As a result, his characters inspire affection, feel familiar, and inhabit stories that are sincere and free of artificiality.

“It has been a long time since dialogue in Polish cinema sounded so unpretentious, and just as long since I have seen actors capable of delivering it with such naturalness,” wrote Jakub Socha about Grzegorzek’s work.

This distinctive storytelling style was captured particularly well by Socha in his review of Kamper for Dwutygodnik:

“There are no hard-to-swallow punchlines or moral lessons in this film (…) The characters, instead of throwing around aphorisms, wander about and talk—sometimes wisely, sometimes foolishly, sometimes for a reason, sometimes out of boredom. At times they may even seem a little too cool in their endless conversations, but that does not change one simple fact: it has been a long time since dialogue in Polish cinema sounded so unpretentious, and just as long since I have seen actors capable of delivering it so naturally. Grzegorzek feels at home in this unspectacular world of modest ambitions; he is not ashamed of it and does not try to artificially heighten its drama.”

Grzegorzek is equally unafraid to portray provincial Poland in a way that differs from the conventions established by Polish cinema over many years. He neither idealizes nor demonizes it. The provincial tennis courts and hotels in A Coach’s Daughter are more amusing than ominous. Similarly, Nysa in My Wonderful Life is presented as an ordinary small town where, yes, one may encounter drunkards on the streets at night, but where danger, pathology, and evil are not lurking around every corner.

In 2021, Grzegorzek made his debut as a theatre director. At the Jan Szaniawski Dramatic Theatre in Wałbrzych, he staged the monodrama Rita, devoted to the complex relationship between Rita and Witold Gombrowicz. The title role was played by Karolina Bruchnicka—herself a native of Wałbrzych and at that time associated with the theatre—while Gombrowicz, who appears on screen, was portrayed by Marek Kalita.

Currently, Grzegorzek is directing the third season of the television series The Teacher (Belfer).

“Work on the screenplay has been ongoing for many months (…) In the new season, the story takes place by the sea, in the hometown region of the Teacher. We will discover his fears and dreams and confront the problems faced by contemporary high-school students. What interests me in this story is not only the criminal plot, but also the gallery of fascinating characters with whom the Teacher will come into conflict,” the director said.