Kinga Dębska

She was supposed to become a Japanese studies scholar, but instead ended up learning Czech to study film directing at FAMU in Prague. Kinga Dębska is a director, screenwriter and author. She was born in 1969 in Białystok.

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Kinga Dębska, photo: Krzysztof Zuczkowski/Forum

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Her artistic path was somewhat unusual. She started with a two-year filmmaking course (at the now non-existent Camerimage Film School) in Toruń. She made her first steps in the industry as a documentary filmmaker – between 2000 and 2009 she directed a couple of films for Polish Television. Dębska decided to keep on studying – she chose to enrol at FAMU in Prague, where she was admitted straight into the fourth year. As she said in an interview with Tomasz Raczek, she was already a mature, experienced person at the time of her application. She graduated from the FAMU in 2007.

Rebound (2009) was Dębska's feature-length debut. It is a story about a psychiatrist who becomes addicted to heroin, with Paweł Królikowski in the starring role. He was accompanied by Lesław Żurek and Czech star Anna Geislerova, amongst others. Dębska used her documentary experience whilst she was writing and shooting Rebound. As she said in an interview for Empik:

Documentary filmmaking teaches you discipline, perceptivity and openness. As a director who has some experience in this field, you get more flexible and understand that you don’t need to follow the script like it’s scripture. [...] At each and every stage of work I’ve used this experience. I’ve also spent some time at a psych ward to observe the doctors and the patients, and so did my actors. Lesław [Żurek] even went to meetings for adult children of alcoholics.

After a debut, directors usually hear that it is their second film that is going to be the true test of their skill. If that's truly the case, Dębska passed with flying colours. These Daughters of Mine (2015) is based on the true story of the director's family. It features two sisters (played by Gabriela Muskała and Agata Kulesza) who are trying to face the fact that their parents are dying. In a conversation with Tomasz Raczek, Dębska admitted that the film was her way of postponing mourning over her parents' death. However, it turned out that the film was not merely Dębska's therapy. It was appreciated by both critics and audiences for its honesty and tenderness towards the protagonists.

The film was nominated for the Polish Film Awards: Eagles in several categories. Eventually, Dębska received the award for Best Script. The film also received the Audience Award – both at the Eagles prize gala and during Gdynia Film Festival. Dębska also wrote two books based on the same story, further developing plots that did not end up in the film.

These Daughters of Mine, dir. Kinga Dębska – Image Gallery

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Whilst she was waiting for production of These Daughters of Mine to begin, Dębska was working on a documentary film about Polish actress Elżbieta Czyżewska. The film, titled The Actress, was released in 2015. Dębska co-directed it with Maria Konwicka. To provide more context: in the 1950s and '60s, Czyżewska was a very popular actress in Poland. In 1965 she married David Halberstam, a New York Times reporter. His critical accounts of the communist regime in Poland forced him to leave the country. Czyżewska decided to immigrate to the US together with her husband. It is that period of her life – the US years – that interested the two directors most. In the film, various artists share their memories of the actress, including Oscar-winner Andrzej Wajda and… Meryl Streep herself. The two actresses met whilst working on Demons by Wajda. The Actress received the Eagle Award for Best Documentary Film.

The Actress directed by Kinga Dębska and Monika Konwicka – Image Gallery

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In 2018, two films directed by Dębska were released. As she said in an interview for the YouTube channel KINOrozmowa, she is interested in making quality mainstream cinema. She consequently follows this path. The first of the two films, Plan B, written by Karolina Szablewska, is a comedy-drama featuring four friends (performed by Kinga Preis, Marcin Dorociński, Edyta Olszówka and Roma Gąsiorowska) whose lives change right before Valentine’s Day. Half a year later, Playing Hard premiered. Dębska wrote the script together with Mika Dunin. It is a drama about three women (Dorota Kolak, Agata Kulesza, Maria Dębska) who struggle with alcoholism.

The artist has also directed theatre shows. In 2011 she staged Vařený Hlavy (Boiled Heads, trans. NS) by the Czech playwright Marek Horoščak at the Capitol Theatre in Warsaw. The play is a black comedy and a satirical take on in-yer-face theatre. In 2020, after her successes in cinema, Dębska directed the show Tancerz (Dancer, trans. NS) based on a short story by Witold Gombrowicz in the Powszechny Theatre in Radom. The director interpreted the piece as the first Polish literary account of stalking.

Dębska does not slow down – in 2021 a prequel of These Daughters of Mine is going to have its premiere. The film stars Adam Woronowicz and Kinga Preis.