21st Szczecin Film Festival - Lech Majewski Retrospective: "The Mill and the Cross"

Set in 1564—the same year Pieter Bruegel painted his masterpiece *The Way to Calvary*—the film intertwines the Passion of Christ with the plight of Flanders, which was politically and religiously oppressed by the Spanish. In this context, Bruegel—the most outstanding philosopher among painters—emerges as the Shakespeare of Flanders, and his painting tells a story of historical tragedy and the value of tolerance. From among the more than five hundred figures in the painting, the screenwriters selected a dozen individuals whose fates intertwine in the film. Rutger Hauer portrays Peter Bruegel; Michel York plays the banker Jonghelinck and a collector of Bruegel’s paintings, while Charlotte Rampling stars as Maria. “The Mill and the Cross” presents a completely new challenge for Majewski—to recreate the world of the Flemish master, the visuals are constructed in multiple layers using the latest computer graphics techniques and 3D effects. Lech Majewski Painter, film and theater director, video artist, screenwriter, producer, poet, and prose writer. This artist, originally from Katowice, has developed his own artistic language, in which the universe of myths is a constant theme. He studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków and graduated from the Directing Department of the Łódź Film School. His body of work is known and appreciated around the world. His films have been screened at film festivals in Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Toronto, Rome, New York, London, Jerusalem, and Montreal, among others, winning numerous awards. His video art, photographs, and sculptures have been exhibited in many museums and galleries around the world. In 2006, the Museum of Modern Art in New York honored his work by organizing a solo retrospective, and a year later, the installation “The Poet’s Blood” became part of the 52nd Venice Biennale. His subsequent video art series, “Bruegel Suite,” was exhibited at the Louvre, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the National Gallery in London, the Prado in Madrid, the National Museum in Kraków, and at the 54th Venice Biennale. He also lectures at numerous universities and colleges around the world—from Canterbury University in New Zealand, through Harvard and Berkeley in the U.S., to the University of Pisa and the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. He is a member of the Directors Guild of America, the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the European Film Academy.