Olga Chajdas

Film and theatre director, screenwriter. Her debut feature film, ‘Nina’, was awarded at festivals in Rotterdam, Bydgoszcz and Gdynia. Born on 5th February 1983 in Poznań.

Header picture

Picture size

small

Podpis obrazka (umieszczony pod zdjęciem)

Olga Chajdas, photo: © POLITYKA / Leszek Zych

Text positon (deprecated)

Center

Chajdas graduated with a degree in directing from Akademia Filmu i Telewizji in Warsaw, did a course in directing at the Wajda School and holds a diploma in film production from the Łódź Film School. Before she decided to enrol in film school, she planned on becoming an astrophysicist. Pursuing a career in cinema instead, Chajdas worked extensively before she started directing film: she was an assistant production manager, an assistant director and gained experience in theatre.

Picture display

standardowy (864px desktop)

'Zrób Sobie Raj' directed by Olga Chajdas & Kasia Adamik, photo: Krzysztof Bieliński / Studio Theatre in Warsaw

Picture image

zrob sobie raj_6291724.jpg

She began in Na Woli Theatre in Warsaw, where she assisted director Maciej Kowalewski during the production of Bomba (The Bomb, trans. NS). In 2008, Chajdas staged Last Jew in Europe by Tuvia Tenenbom. Aneta Kyzioł wrote for the magazine Polityka:

Mercilessly mocking racial stereotypes, Tenenbom sheds light on both Polish and American anti-Semitism, but also Jewish self-hatred, and shows how religious fanaticism and narrow-mindedness influences individual lives. Thanks to the young director, Olga Chajdas, […] the show is concise and clear-cut, and the acting is quite good. ‘Last Jew in Europe’ does not dissolves the drama in compassion; it also is not a one-sided accusation that automatically puts the attacked in defence mode. Instead, the show does what theatre ought to be doing: it provokes thought.

Theatre was not a one-time adventure for Chajdas. In 2010, in co-operation with Kasia Adamik, the director staged the tragicomedy The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? by Edward Albee in OCH-Theatre in Warsaw. The piece ponders on diversity and the limits of tolerance. Two years later, Chajdas and Adamik joined forces again to direct Zrób Sobie Raj (Create Your Own Paradise) based on the non-fiction book by Mariusz Szczygieł in Studio Theatre in Warsaw. In 2015, Chajdas directed 'night, Mother by Marsha Norman in the National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw.

Video embed

1983 | Oficjalny zwiastun | Netflix

With time, Chajdas abandoned theatre for cinema. She started working as assistant director, co-operating with Agnieszka Holland on Prime Minister, the first Polish political fiction series. She also served as AD on the set of The Offsiders directed by Kasia Adamik, Janosik: A True Story and In Darkness, both directed by Agnieszka Holland and Kasia Adamik.

In an interview for TVN24, Chajdas said:

As assistant director to Agnieszka and Kasia, I've learned a great deal and gained a lot of experience. I think all directors should have experience serving different functions on set – this way you learn how to talk to the crew.

Chajdas gained her first solo directorial experiences on the sets of TV shows. She directed the soap opera Barwy Szczęścia (The Colours of Happiness, trans. NS) and the pseudo-documentary Ukryta Prawda (The Hidden Truth, trans. NS). A turning point came with the show Głęboka Woda (Into Deep Water, trans. NS), which tells the story of a group of social workers. The series, shot between 2011 and 2013, turned out a success with the audiences and gained several international awards, giving Chajdas opportunity to work on more television projects. In 2015, the artist directed three episodes of the show Uwikłani (In the Web, trans. NS), and two years later she directed the drama series Za Marzenia (Dreams & Wishes, trans. NS).

So far the first Polish series to be produced by Netflix, 1983, remains Chajdas's biggest success in television. Directed by four women directors (Chajdas, Agnieszka Holland, Kasia Adamik and Agnieszka Smoczyńska), the show is a counterfactual political fiction depicting an alternative history of Poland in which the communist regime never ended. The production premiered in 2018, sparking heated debates amongst Polish critics.

Video embed

Nina - trailer (english subtitles)

Fruitful for the director's career, 2018 saw two premieres of films directed by Chajdas: the short Morning Has Broken and the feature film Nina.

Morning Has Broken is a story of a woman who killed her husband and daughter. Grim as it sounds, Chajdas did not hit a sensational note – the act itself was not shown on-screen and the woman's motive remained unclear. Instead, the director portrayed a person who willingly turned herself in to tell the truth about the murders, perfectly aware of what she had done. The short, featuring an excellent role by Iza Kuna, was presented on numerous festivals and brought Chajdas a nomination for the Jan Machulski Independent Polish Cinema Award in the category Best script.

Picture display

standardowy (864px desktop)

Olga Chajdas on set of 'Nina', 2018, photo: Palka Robert/Film It

Picture image

olga_chajdas-palka-portret.jpg

Chajdas's first feature film, Nina, premiered in October 2018. She had worked on her full-length debut for over seven years. The drama centres on a couple struggling to have a child, who become engaged in a complicated romantic relationship with a young woman.

After the film premiered, the director Joanna Kos-Krauze remarked:

‘Nina’ will go down in history as one of the bravest films in Polish cinema. It's both acute and tender. It depicts our fears, solitude, and illusions in an exhibitionist yet intimate manner, whilst still retaining tenderness and empathy. I think it includes some of the most beautiful love scenes in Polish cinema.

The film received the prestigious Big Screen award at the International Film Festival in Rotterdam. As the jury justified:

‘Nina’ is a universal story about love, identity, and hope; about a struggle for freedom and personal integrity. Visually remarkable for its long, intimate shots, the film is also beautifully played.

Several months later, Nina gained the main prize in the category ‘Different Perspectives’ at the Gdynia Film Festival and won the Polish film competition at the Camerimage International Film Festival.

Enthusiastically received by the critics, the film brought Chajdas a nomination for the Polityka Passports award. The critic Łukasz Maciejewski who proposed that Chajdas become a candidate for the prize wrote:

‘Nina’ is all about an unsettling rhythm, a remarkable atmosphere, excellent acting, but at the top of things it is a film about feelings, including those that subvert the so-called norms.

Tadeusz Sobolewski wrote:

This bold film is in fact a dream about life governed by different rules; a life free from rigid family, social and sexual roles.

Olga Chajdas was amongst the Polish women directors who created the project Erotica 2022 – a Netflix-produced film anthology about women's sexuality in a dystopian future. The segment directed by Chajdas, Nocna Zmiana (Night Shift, trans. NS), was based on a screenplay created by the crime writer Gaja Grzegorzewska. The two artists joined forces to produce a surrealist revenge movie, giving their female characters an opportunity to avenge sexual violence. Małgorzata Bela played the main role.

Sources: Polityka, TVN24, Gildia Reżyserów Polskich, Filmpolski.pl.

Originally written in Polish by Bartosz Staszczyszyn, translated into English by NS, latest update: NS, December 2020

kobieta budzi się rano

Branoc mamo

zrób sobie raj

mariusz szczygieł