Ewa Braun with the 50^th Polish Film Festival Platinum Lions Award

The award of the 50^th anniversary Polish Film Festival in Gdynia for lifetime achievements will go to Ewa Braun, outstanding production designer and set decorator. She will be presented with the award during the Closing Gala of the 50^th Polish Film Festival.

This is extremely joyful news for me! I am honoured by the decision to award me the Platinum Lions for lifetime achievements. Traditionally, this award has been given primarily to directors, and I am really proud that by the decision of the Festival Organising Committee, on the recommendation of the Polish Filmmakers Association and the Festival Programme Council, I will receive this extremely prestigious award. Especially since the presentation will take place at the 50^th anniversary Polish Film Festival Awards Ceremony. I am well satisfied that for the second time, after Agnieszka Holland, a female director will be awarded – comments the award recipient, Ewa Braun.

This year, the Platinum Lions will be awarded to an artist who is gifted with exceptional cinematic sensitivity and, at the same time, extremely precise in her actions. In the intricate worlds she creates on set, every detail, texture, colour and shape comes into play. Working in film is like taking an extraordinary journey in time“, says Ewa Braun, and I am already looking forward to the joint journey with the laureate in Gdynia – says the Artistic Director, Joanna Łapińska.

Director Jan P. Matuszyński, Chairman of the PFF Programme Council, comments on the choice of the winner: This year’s Platinum Lions will go to a person who combines the history of cinema with the present. As the Chairman of the PFF Programme Council, which proposed this candidacy, I am happy that we can distinguish Ewa Braun, who, thanks to her work, can make us feel as if time is standing still. May cinema always have such timeless power.

Ewa Braun is a production designer, costume designer and set decorator, professor of art, lecturer at the Faculty of Stage Design of the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, and in the years 1999–2023 at Lodz Film School, where 120 student films were made under her supervision.

Winner of the Oscar for set decoration for Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (together with Allan Starski, 1994) and the Award for production design at the 12^th Polish Film Festival for the film The Young Magician by Waldemar Dziki (together with a team of production designers and set decorators, 1987).

She has collaborated on over 60 feature-length and television films and series with outstanding Polish and foreign directors. She designed costumes for, among others, Underground Passage (1973) by Krzysztof Kieślowski, Jealousy and Medicine (1973) and Hotel Excelsior (1975) by Janusz Majewski, and Hospital of Transfiguration by Edward Żebrowski. She has worked as a set decorator, among others, with Steven Spielberg on Schindler’s List (1994), with Volker Schlöndorff on The Ogre (1996), with Janusz Majewski on The Gorgon Case (1977), the series Reina Bona (1980), An Epitaph for Barbara Radziwill (1982), H.M. Deserters (1985) and Deserter’s Gold (1998), with Jan Rybkowski and Marek Nowicki on the series The Career of Nikodem Dyzma (1980), with Wojciech Jerzy Has on An Uneventful Story (1982), with Agnieszka Holland on Europa Europa (1992), Tadeusz Konwicki on Lawa (1989), with Andrzej Wajda on Wielki Tydzień (1995), with Krzysztof Zanussi in The Illumination (1972), Camouflage (1976), Wherever you are (1988). As a production designer, she worked with Krzysztof Zanussi on Life for Life: Maximilian Kolbe (1990), The Touch (1992) and Our God’s Brother (1997), Costa-Gavras on The Little Apocalypse (1992) and Peter Kassovitz on Jakob the Liar (1999).

Awarded with the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta and the Gold Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis, she is a member of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and a member and founder of the Polish Film Academy. In the years 1990–1996 she was a member of the Management Board of the Polish Filmmakers Association.

During the Festival there will be events with the participation of Ewa Braun. The festival audience will have an opportunity to watch An Uneventful Story by Wojciech Jerzy Has with set decoration by Ewa Braun, additionally the winner will take part in the The Big Five section and host a masterclass.

The 50^th Polish Film Festival in Gdynia will take place on 22^nd–27^th September 2025. The Producer of the Festival is the Pomeranian Film Foundation in Gdynia.

photo Anita Walczewska/East News/SFP