The luxury that I have is I'm not career-minded, I just live from one film to the next. For a time, I was making documentaries, and all my documentaries were winning awards and stuff, and then I lost interest in documentaries. Pawel Pawlikowski More Quotes by Pawel Pawlikowski More Quotes From Pawel Pawlikowski My films are always a reflection of where I am in my life. Pawel Pawlikowski i-am my-life reflection life I come from a magnetic field of Catholicism. I was baptised by my mother's family, who were all traditional Catholics. But my mother was the black sheep of the family - she ran away to the ballet at 17. Pawel Pawlikowski family black mother sheep 'Ida' doesn't set out to explain history. That's not what it's about. The story is focused on very concrete and complex characters who are full of humanity with all its paradoxes. They're not pawns used to illustrate some version of history or an ideology. Pawel Pawlikowski story focused humanity history I'm not emotionally excited by the power of cinema's tricks anymore. Pawel Pawlikowski anymore excited cinema power For me, filmmaking is not exactly a career. I was never in it for Hollywood or anything. My films are markers of where I am in life, where I am in my head. So that's what I'm working on, and I try to keep things in proportion - life and filmmaking. One feeds into the other. Pawel Pawlikowski i-am never me life 'Ida' is about humanity, about guilt and forgiveness. It's not a film that deals with an issue as such. It's more universal. Pawel Pawlikowski more forgiveness guilt humanity The whole world, it's a problem that there's too much stuff being produced. We don't have time to reflect on the important things in life. Pawel Pawlikowski problem time life world It's wonderful that Poland is free again and there's open debate and people can pursue their interests. I'm all for it. Pawel Pawlikowski free debate wonderful people I grew up in a secular environment, you know, in the '60s and '70s. My mother's family was Catholic, but you know, just very kind of conventionally Catholic. You know, nothing - there was nothing, you know, extreme about their version of religion. And my father was a free spirit, you know? He had no time for religion at all. Pawel Pawlikowski family mother time father I think - you know, the big trauma in my life, personally, was the fact that at 14, I was taken out of Poland unwittingly because my parents were divorced. Left the country - my mother left for England with her new husband. I wasn't even aware that she'd married him. Pawel Pawlikowski my-life you mother life Strangely, you know, my parents, who left Poland separately and, you know, divorced, ended up marrying other people. But then they met again abroad, and they got together again. Pawel Pawlikowski parents you together people One of my favorite writers is Chekhov. I love his attitude toward the world. Just accept things for what they are. Don't judge. Be moral as you tell your story, but have no moral at the end. Just look at it. Pawel Pawlikowski look you attitude love The documentaries I made were never normal documentaries. They were about subjects I was obsessed with, and I suppose I thought I could sculpt them. What I think I do with my fiction is the same. Pawel Pawlikowski i-think never thought think I always thought that life is full of stories and characters that feel like literary stories and characters. So when I started making documentaries, they weren't humble empirical things, just following people around. I was always trying to impose a story. Pawel Pawlikowski feel humble life people A good script is like a work of art in itself. I've read hundreds of scripts, and good ones are very rare. If the writer has something to say, and a voice, and a plot that matches character, and an emotional trajectory that works, then I'd be an idiot to fool around with it. It's just that few scripts ever are like that. Pawel Pawlikowski good work character art I dread to be compared to all these directors who have a lot of spontaneous emoting and swearing in their films - that is death; it's a cul-de-sac. It doesn't lift the material at all. It's just a cliched reproduction of what we think is normal behaviour. Pawel Pawlikowski lift just think death
