- venue: The Gallery, Gdynia FIlm Centre, Plac Grunwaldzki 2, Gdynia
- dates: 21st–30th September 2026
- opening: Monday, 21st September 2026, 5.00 pm
- free admission
The exhibition “Andrzej Wajda: Recollection” is a meeting with an artist that always felt at home at the Polish Film Festival, in his element, among people speaking the same language. On the one hand, a film master – a visionary teaching the next generations about sensibility. On the other, a friend from the set and festival corridors.
Photos by Renata Pajchel shown at the Gallery of the Gdynia Film Center depict Wajda at work, deep in thought: his emotions, gestures, facial expressions. The accomplished photographer registered with utmost attention the liminal moments of tension between preparing and acting, concentration, gestures, and silence just before the take, coalescing into a separate narration. In the evenings the exposition will be projected on the wall of The Musical Theatre.
Surrounded by the photographs, we will be listening to recollections about Wajda recorded during the Polish Film Festival in 2017. This unique material is part of an unfinished documentary by Liliana Komorowska Wajda and You, in which film directors, actors, cinematographers, and other industry professionals reminisce about the master as well as the influence he had on their own work. Those two perspectives form a personal, polyphonic image of an artist and a man, still present in the memory of those who came into contact with him.
WAJDA. BTS SHOTS. RENATA PAJCHEL
The photography exhibition by Renata Pajchel provides a unique opportunity to meet Andrzej Wajda’s figure once again. As one of the most important filmmakers in the history of European cinema, Wajda was not only a director with undisputed artistic achievements but also a careful observer of reality. His films grew out of past experiences but never limited to mere depiction – they provided space for reflection on memory, morality, and responsibility of an individual. From early pictures, such as A Generation (1954), Kanal (1956) or Ashes and Diamonds (1958), to latter including Man of Marble (1976), Man of Iron (1981) and Katyn (2007), Wajda’s work signposted the development of film d'auteur and built his international recognition.
The central figure of the presented photographs is Wajda “at work” – focused, careful and continually talking to actors and co-workers. It is a portrait of an artist immersed in a creative process, for whom a film set was a space for an intensive exchange of thoughts and emotions.
The photographs reveal not only the director's artistry but also his charisma and ability to form a team, in which every element was a part of a cohesive vision.
The exhibition also serves as an appreciation for Renata Pajchel - the master of stills, whose works are something more than just film set documentation. Her photographs are independent pieces of art with high artistic value. Pajchel was able to capture pivotal moments of tension between preparing and acting, silence just before the take, concentration and gestures, which in films often go unnoticed. Thanks to her artistic sensibility and intuition, the photographs build a separate narration, parallel to the film itself.
The presented material, previously mostly unpublished, comes from the collections of the artist’ heirs and has a special documentary and aesthetic value. On Wajda’s 100th birthday anniversary, the exhibition becomes not only a tribute for his achievements but also a try to approach his work from a new perspective - through the eyes of the photographer, who with exceptional carefulness and sensing was able to capture the essence of his work. It is a story of a meeting between two remarkable people - a director, who created pictures for history, and a photographer, who was able to save them in the very moment of their creation.
WAJDA AND YOU
QueenArt Films, Education Culture Art Foundation and Liliana Komorowska’s Foundation for Art present fragments of interviews realised for a documentary film in making Wajda and You, directed by Liliana Komorowska.
The project originated in 2017 during the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia. Exactly there, one year after Wajda’s passing, first talks with people of cinema about the artist, whose work crossed the borders between countries and generations, were shot. Directors, actors, cinematographers, and other industry professionals reminisce about the master as well as the
influence he had on their own work. Those intimate conversations form a personal, polyphonic image of Andrzej Wajda, through the eyes of people he inspired. It is an honour to have fragments of Wajda and You accompany Renata Pajchel’s photography exhibition, featuring photos from Wajda’s film sets. Pictures and memories meet here in this special way and the project symbolically comes back to Gdynia - the place where everything started.
- Writer and Director: Liliana Komorowska
- Producer: Liliana Komorowska
- Co-Producer and Photographer: Ela Kinowska
- Cinematography: Maciej Miller, Sławek Witek, Jacek Knopp
- Poster: Andrzej Pągowski
- Editing of footage for the exhibition Andrzej Wajda: Recollection: Sławomir Pultyn
The interviews were shot in Gdynia Film Centre during the Polish Film Festival in 2017.
Liliana Komorowska – actress, director, film producer. A graduate of the Zelwerowicz State Theatre Academy in Warsaw, she has lived and worked in North America for over forty years, realising film projects both there and in Europe. She played many significant theatrical, television, and film roles, including Polish cinema’s classic Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s The Inn. In the US, Komorowska debuted in a film by an Oscar-winning director Moshe Mizrahi and later played in Hollywood productions, alongside Donald Sutherland, Aidan Quinn, Sir Ben Kingsley and Wesley Snipes. Since 1994 she has lived in Canada, where she also plays in French (Roméo et Juliette with Jeanne Moreau). After years of an acting career, she turned to directing documentary films. Her directorial debut Beauty and the Breast won many awards, including the Audience Award at the International Film Festival in Montreal. She has also produced an award-winning documentary To My Father. Alongside with the Wajda and You project, she is co-directing with Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz a different, full-length documentary film titled Director: Andrzej Wajda, produced by Silver Frame, featuring remarkable creators of world cinema, such as Martin Scorsese. The film is currently in postproduction and will soon start its festival tour, ahead of a planned cinema distribution in 2027.