Borys Lankosz

Soon thereafter, awards began to appear on the international arena. Rewers received FIPRESCI Award at the Warsaw Film Festival; the St. George Award at the Moscow International Film Festival; as well as the Grand Jury Prize for Best New Director at the Seattle International Film Festival. The decision of the latter award was articulated by the jury as follows: "Borys Lankosz’s Rewers succeeds its substantial ambition to tell the story of love, family, and loyalty in a brutal post war Warsaw. Uniquely, first time director Lankosz manages to deliver a highly stylized vision without sacrificing character, story, or performance. We are happy and honored to give the Best New Director Award to this touching, thrilling, and deeply human film."

His thriller “A Grain of Truth”, where the phantoms of medieval antisemitism seem to reappear in a contemporary small Polish town, was a box office hit of 2015.

In 2014 Borys Lankosz made his debut in theatre. He directed a French play Le Repas des faves by Vahe Katcha in one of the most popular theaters in Warsaw, Polonia Theatre. 1942, occupied France. Seven friends get together to celebrate the anniversary of their host. The event takes place under the best auspices, until at the foot of their building are slaughtered two German officers. In retaliation, the Gestapo demands they designate two hostages from among themselves .

Recently Lankosz completed thriller A Grain of Truth an adaptation of Polish bestselling novel by Zygmunt Miłoszewski, which was named novel of the year by Polish biggest bookstore chain Empik, was published in UK, US, France and Israel. According to NPR Books A Grain of Truth, like every great crime novel, digs up more unsettling questions than it does answer; it also demonstrates the seemingly endless possibilities of the form itself to serve as smart social criticism. Who knows? Maybe 2013 will be the year Poland snatches the crime fiction crown away from the Swedes and Norwegians. The movie, which was directed, co-written and produced by Lankosz premiered January 2015.

Lankosz directed a modern crime story TV series Paradox (2012) as well as two-part TV musical Memoir of Ms. Hannah (2013), set in late 30. in bourgeois Warsaw. Starry cast "Memoir of Ms. Hannah" follows a young and attractive woman (Joanna Kulig) who by careless romance gets involved in a spy affair.

Soon after its premiere, it became evident that this modest black and white film about Stalinist Poland (now a subject of research of film theorists as well as sociologists), was to become a box office hit, which in the Polish domestic market effectively competes with the biggest Hollywood hits such as Twilight Saga or 2012.

His feature debut titled Rewers (Reverse) won first prize, the Golden Lion, on Polish Film Festival in 2009 in Gdynia. Lankosz is also a director and screenwriter of several documentary and short films: Radegast (documentary film), Alien VI (short).

In 2009, Lankosz directed his first feature film Reverse, which became a staggering success and marked a new direction in his work. The film was produced by legendary film studio Kadr, responsible for the creation of the most important, now classic films of the so-called Polish Film School of the 1950s and 1960s. Reverse, the studio's first production in over fourteen years, turned out to be a smashing success. Already at its premiere at the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia, Reverse was heralded as the forerunner of a "New Wave" of Polish cinema, and Lankosz himself was appointed its patron.

Lankosz's diploma film, a 2001 documentary entitled Evolution, won the 45th San Francisco International Film Festival as well as many other international and Polish film festivals. The jury in San Francisco decided to award the film "because of its remarkable mood, tone and beauty." According to the jury, Evolution's "every shot, cut, sound effect conspires to involve the audience in its tense, astonishing and provocative world. [...] Its grip is unrelenting, and lasts long after it’s beautiful final moments."

Borys Lankosz (born 31 March 1973 in Cracow) - Polish film director. He graduated from National Film School in Łódź. His debut film "Evolution" (2001) received several awards, i.a. the Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival. He is the creator of the documentary series From a Different Angle, filmed in Iran, China and Zimbabwe, and the films Kurc and Poles Poles (with Wislawa Szymborska, Stanislaw Lem, Krzysztof Penderecki).

The success of his first film Evolution, opened many doors at the outset of the young director's career. In proceeding years, with the Polish Television as the producer, Lankosz made many documentary films which won the acclaim of audiences, critics, and awards at prestigious international film festivals. Among the most notable of which are: Poles Poles, a documentary about some of the most eminent Polish figures (such as Nobel prize-winning poet Wisława Szymborska, as well as the legendary science fiction writer and author of Solaris, Stanisław Lem, among others) and Radegast, a harrowing documentary tale about Western European Jews, who in 1941 were sent to the Łódź ghetto, which received the Silver Phoenix Award at the International Film Festival Jewish Motifs in Warsaw, the Finalist Award Winner of The New York Festivals, as well as being awarded a Monumentum Iudaicum Lodzense Medal.