Calligraphy Lessons: Piotr Andrejew in Conversation with Piotr Marecki

Piotr Marecki

Abstract

The interview deals with a forgotten group in Polish cinematography. The term “calligraphers” was coined in the 1970s by a veteran of Polish film club movement - Mikołaj Wojciechowski (he run the eldest and the most important film discussion club in Poland - “Zygzakiem”). Calligraphers’ films were characterised by great attention to detail and a search for new forms of ex­pression. What mattered in those films was the departure from the literary model, and instead focusing on the image, expression, sound and the film editing process. The words in the films of the Calligraphers are used in the context of the image, and not as an element of journalism (which was then typical in documentaries, especially those attempting to describe the truth about “the world not shown”). It was very important to move away from the then common function of films of the time, which was to describe the totalitarian reality of the country, and give testimony of the period. Calligraphers perceive film as a discovery, provocation, an experiment, a fully artistic form of communication. A very important aspect of the group was the cooperation with artists from the visual arts, above all with the Workshop of the Film Form (Warsztat Formy Filmowej). A number of artists from visual arts were at the time cooperating with the National Film School in Łódź, among them Wojciech Bruszewski, Józef Robakowski. It was the only moment in the history of Polish cinema, when film makers where trying to express the problems connected with the question of film form and introduce theoretical intuitions into the practice of making films. Artists who belonged to the Calligraphers group include Wojciech Wiszniewski, Bogdan Dziworski, Andrzej Barański, Piotr Andrejew, Wojciech Bruszewski, Piotr Szulkin, Ryszard Waśko, Bogdan Górski, Zbigniew Rybczyński.