From August until October, The Garden Cinema presents Devils and Shamans: The Films of Andrzej Żuławski, the most comprehensive retrospective of the Polish filmmaker’s work to ever take place in the UK.
Among the most uncompromising and visionary filmmakers of post-war European cinema, Żuławski withstands straightforward categorisation. Bringing together ten features from his extensive career, Devils and Shamans is an opportunity to experience his radical style, as it evolved over the span of five decades. Working across Poland and France from the late 1960s until his death in 2016, Żuławski created films of extreme emotional and intellectual intensity, combining psychological drama, politics, horror, science fiction, romance, and philosophy into a singular body of work that continues to defy cinematic language.
Żuławski, the son of a Polish diplomat, was born in L’viv, Ukraine, during the Second World War. He began his career as an assistant to renowned filmmaker Andrzej Wajda, who, along with Krzysztof Kieślowski, was one of the defining figures of the Cinema of Moral Concern, which came to dominate Polish filmmaking in the 1970s. Żuławski however quickly established a different path, gaining a reputation as the enfant terrible of Polish cinema.
Where Wajda and Kieślowski reflected on contemporary issues through social realism, Żuławski rejected the restraint of his peers in favour of excess and hysteria, creating work in which the psychological, political, and metaphysical collide. He drew heavily on literature, mythology, philosophy, and the theatre of Jerzy Grotowski to exhibit the deepest anxieties of the human condition.
His early career was shaped by censorship and exile, following the release of The Third Part of the Night, his debut inspired by his father’s experiences during the Nazi occupation, and the long-banned The Devil. Due to the suppression of The Devil by Soviet authorities, Żuławski left Poland for France, where he directed That Most Important Thing: Love, launching his career in Western Europe.
As a result of this film’s success, he was invited to return to Poland to make the science-fiction epic On the Silver Globe, an adaptation of his Great Uncle Jerzy Żuławski’s novel. However, the nearly completed production was stopped by the government in 1977, forcing Żuławski out of Poland once again. The film, which was not completed until a decade later, became one of the defining examples of artistic repression under the communist regime.
Alongside these landmark works, the season includes La Femme Publique, Szamanka, and Possession, Żuławski’s only English-language feature (once included on the infamous list of ‘Video Nasties’) and now considered one of the defining films of horror cinema. We will be screening both the original European version, as well as the rare North American cut. The programme also features L’amour Braque and Boris Godunov, which have never screened theatrically in the UK, and Cosmos, his final feature, adapted from Witold Gombrowicz’s book.
Long regarded as a cult filmmaker, Żuławski is now acknowledged as an essential voice of 20th century European cinema. His collaborations with performers including Isabelle Adjani, Romy Schneider, Sophie Marceau, and Valérie Kaprisky produced some of the most infamous performances in film history, while his uncompromising visual style continues to influence current generations of filmmakers. Devils and Shamans offers a rare chance to experience the scale of his work the way it was intended, revealing a filmography that today remains as provocative as ever.
With thanks to the Polish Cultural Institute London, Video Bazaar, and Daniel Bird.
