Lechki spent his childhood and completed his secondary school education in Wołów. He pursued his further education at the Public Post-Secondary School for Culture Animators and Librarians in Wrocław, studying film theory. The studies imbued in him a passion for film which resulted in his first productions, awarded at amateur film festivals. This passion turned out to be so strong that in 1997 Lechki managed to get himself accepted into the Radio and Television Department at The University of Silesia in Katowice. He graduated in 2002.
In one of his first interviews Lechki described his creative inspirations:
I am influenced by poetic, nostalgic cinema, films made by Tarkovsky, Mikhalkov, Leszczyński. Films which are not depleted of their meanings after one screening. Still, life inspires me above all. You could list them endlessly and whatever you said would sound trivial: the meeting of another person, a person's interesting life story, conflict, campfires in autumn, cold winter air... and my childhood. I find bits of it in everything. Art is the willingness to share selflessly. Selflessly at first, obviously you wait to see if the film is well received later. But first comes the impulse to share this rapture you are filled with.
Kino No. 11/2002
His first film, My Town (2002) was produced as part of the "Pokolenie 2000" / "Generation 2000" film debuts series. Many people were enthused about the production, and the numerous awards it received at festivals in Gdynia and Koszalin only proved its success. My Town is a story about the residents of a housing block on the outskirts of a town somewhere in Upper Silesia. It is shown from the point of view of a twenty-five-year-old man, numb in the overwhelming apathy - or perhaps just a limbo - waiting for an impulse which would spur him to take action. And it comes, together with a beautiful girl. Social issues, particularly apparent in the Silesian landscape of the time, in Lechki's film serve only as a pretext for reflection on human relations. Reflections on human ability to cope in hopeless situations and to rebel as well - rebellion becoming a step toward spiritual development. In itself the story may seem trivial but it assumes a somewhat personal tone which makes you think that the narrative is not only genuine but, in fact, true. Indeed, in the interview Lechki confessed that he was raised in a similar housing block, and the main character's relations with his parents, especially the father, reflected his own experiences. The many awards the film received are fully justified by the positive reviews, such as the one expressed in Kino monthly No. 11/2002:
"My Town" is a remarkable comment on human existence in a world he has come to live, to put it grandiloquently. Fortunately Lechki could not be further away from any high-flown tones. He observes a piece of the world whole-heartedly and with warmth, tinged with a touch of melancholy. Although in the long shot the picture you see does not fill you with glee, on the individual level it brings hope. 'You surprised us, for sure. Keep it up!', one of the internet commenters wrote after the seeing the film screening in Gdynia. In the end, we all need hope.
Despite the film's warm reception, named the debut of the decade and awarded the Super Jantar at the Youth and Cinema Film Debuts Festival in Koszalin in 2007, Lechki had to wait eight years for a chance to produce another film. It was in part his own fault. In an interview published in Kino No. 10/2010, he confessed:
For two, three years I lived off the money "My Town" had made. Later it got worse. In the meantime I consistently refused to shoot television series or any other less noble formats. The hole created in my household budget was difficult to patch. I did some small-scale work: music videos, social advertising, and some small-scale things for the Wrocław Film Production Company. I earned close to nothing. I look at it differently today. There is nothing worse than not being able to work and not being able to get decent pay. I managed to explain this to myself. But throughout these whole years the worst thing was the horror of waiting for the final decision about 'Erratum', when I was receiving contradictory information: one month all was going great, and the next it was hopeless. This lasted for a couple of years. I do not wish this on anyone. I came close to giving up the profession of film directing. I think I produced 'Erratum' at the very last moment.
There were the objective reasons, too: although highly-regarded producers praised the script one after another, and the Polish Film Institute's issued a positive assessment, they were unable to close the budget. As a result the director decided to risk and take the pains of production on himself:
At a certain point I realised that either I produce 'Erratum' myself with less money or it will not be produced at all. I thank my lucky stars today, after all this had happened. During this one year of production I learned more than in all the previous years taken together.
Erratum is a story about a thirty-year-old who by a twist of fate lands in his homeland, which many years ago he tried to quietly escape. He faces a meeting with the father he hates, as well as a chance to examine his conscience: he has to suffer the consequences of having hit a passer-by - a homeless person, as it turns out - on the road. A business trip transforms into a journey within and a discovery that a seemingly organised life has in fact meant being stuck in a crisis. In order to move forward, one must revaluate one's past and present and achieve redemption. "I award my personal Golden Lions to Marek Lechki's "Erratum", Andrzej Kołodyński reported in Kino (No. 7-8/2010) at the Main Competition of the 2010 Polish Film Festival in Gdynia, going on to describe it as:
A moving film about redemption. A film which is a morality play open to life itself. Obviously, the plot is a story larger than life and should not be treated literally; nonetheless it draws its stark metaphors from known reality. As a narrative the story is very simple: the protagonist comes to Szczecin to pick up his boss's car. He hits a homeless person who dies in hospital, and even though the police do not pursue the matter, the hero wants to learn who that person, the unknown victim, was. Yet the search becomes a search for the protagonist himself, too, an attempt to correct his own 'errata'. The film does not have a linear narrative. Even with keeping the chronology of events you see observations which are almost accidental, fragmentary, and not always fully explained. Przemysław Kamiński's camera seems to have its own narrative, evoking the leitmotiv image of stormy water shot from above, but there is no obsessive symbolism. You sense the author's presence almost physically. On three levels - of vision, sound and story - he plays his own musical game, ending the film with a moving picture of the father and son standing at different sides of the same, closed door. No words are uttered, you can only hear a soft knocking, the sign of an uneasy agreement.
The film's essence lies not in showing the potential of the moving picture but in attempts to describe the surrounding world. And we can count on another few years to go by before we see another Lechki production - may it be as worth the wait as was Erratum.
Filmography:
- 2002 - Astronom / The Astronomer, film-school exercise, writer and director;
- 2002 - Moje miasto / My Town, television film, part of "Pokolenie 2000" / "Generation 2000" series, writer and director;
Jury Special Award, Writing Award, TVP Polish Television Chair Award for Best Film, Best Actress in Supporting Role for Dorota Pomykała, TVP Polish Television Chair Honourable Mention for Music for Bartosz Straburzyński at the 2002 Polish Film Festival in Gdynia; Writing Award, Best Actor Award for Krzysztof Stroiński at the 2002 "Young and Cinema" Film Festival in Koszalin; Silver Dragon for Best Feature Film at the 2003 International Short Film Festival in Krakow; Jury Award at the 2003 Lubuskie Film Summer in Łagów; Super Jantar for Best Debut of the Decade at the 2007 "Young and Cinema" Film Festival in Koszalin;
- 2010 - "Erratum, writer and director;
Award for Director's Debut, Association of Foreign Organizers of Polish Film Festivals Award, Press Award at the 2010 Polish Film Festival in Gdynia; Press Award, Toya Studios Award for sound for Paweł Łuczyc-Wyhowski at the 2010 "Young and Cinema" Film Festival in Koszalin;
- 2010 - Ratownicy / Lifeguards, television series, II crew director.
Author: Konrad J. Zarębski, September 2010. Translated by Helena Chmielewska-Szlajfer, October 2010.