ReFocus: The Films of Agnieszka Holland
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The Films of Agnieszka Holland is the first monograph devoted to the internationally most famous Polish filmmaker, a three times Oscar nominee and the recipient of numerous film festival prizes. It examines her rich, original oeuvre, which ranges from Holocaust dramas such as Europa, Europa (1990) to episodes of the HBO series The Wire. In examining the multifaceted nature of Holland's authorship, the study situates her work in the context of art, popular, national, European, Hollywood, transnational, women's, and queer cinema, as well as global television projects. Her colourful public persona oscillates among auteur, celebrity director, and political activist in an extraordinary professional trajectory, which started in the Eastern Bloc, continued in Western Europe and North America, then backtracked to a unified Europe. That zigzagged route conveys the unique nature of Holland's career while epitomising the transformations of post-Cold War cultural production.
Elżbieta Ostrowska, PhD, is an Associate Professor at the Department of Film and Audiovisual Media at the University of Łódź, Poland. Her most recent book is ReFocus: The Films of Agnieszka Holland (2024). Her articles have appeared in Slavic Review, Studies in European Cinema, and Holocaust and Genocide Studies.