Andrzej Żuławski

Born in Lvov, Ukraine in 1940, Polish director Andrzej Zulawski moved to Poland with his father as a child. He was a student of cinema in France in the 1950s, and worked as an assistant to famed Polish film director Andrzej Wajda. Zulawski made his feature film debut in 1971 with his film "The Third Part of the Night." The movie was an adaptation of a novel written by his father. In 1972 his second film "The Devil," a movie about the aftermath of Poland's invasion by the Prussian army, was banned in Communist Poland. Zulawski relocated to France in response. Two years later he released the highly successful film "That Most Important Thing: Love" (1974) starring Romy Schneider. Following the film's release, Zulawski returned to Poland to work on his next film "On The Silver Globe" but his work in Poland was cut short by the involvement of Polish authorities, and the director was forced to return to France. He spent the bulk of his career in France, making art films that appeared to a particular crowd, and developed a reputation for boundary-pushing psycho-sexual work that regularly courted controversy. Zulawski and French actress Sophie Marceau were in a relationship for 15 years, and made four films together. The couple had a son, Vincent, but ended their relationship in 2001. In 2016 Zulawski died of cancer in a hospital in Warsaw, Poland.