Jerzy Stuhr, photo: Bartosz Krupa/East News
Recognised for his diverse talents as an accomplished movie, theatre, and TV actor, combining comedic roles and dramatic roles, Jerzy Stuhr received the 2012 lifetime achievement award, the Career Prize Premio alla Carriera, at the People and Religions Festival in Terni, Italy.
Known his performances in films including Juliusz Machulski's Sexmission from 1984, set in a future where women rule the world after men were killed off by radiation, and Kingsajz from 1987, a story of a dwarf scientist's adventures in the world of "normal people", Jerzy Stuhr is among Poland's popular, versatile actors. Stuhr often plays in foreign productions, appearing in the Russian film Down House in 2000, in the Italian production The Other’s Life in 2004, in the Israeli-Russian film Arie in 2006 and the British production The Making of Parts directed by Daniel Elliott. He also appeared in two Italian films directed by Nanni Moretti: in 2006 in the film Il Caimano in 2006 and in the 2010 production Habemus Papam, and in the Italian film Let It Be, directed by Guido Chiesa in 2012.
Stuhr caught the attention of Italian audiences in the 1980s as a theatre actor working with the director, actor and translator Giovanni Pampiglione. In Spoleto, Perugia, they presented Oni / They, by the Polish painter, playwright, novelist and philosopher Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz in 1920, as well as Sławomir Mrożek’s Rzeźnia / The Slaughterhouse from 1971. His popularity rose with his monodrama based on Patrick Sueskind’s The Double Bass, performed for several years. Stuhr received an award from the Italian critics for Best Foreign Actor on Italian stages in 1982, and in 1998 he was awarded the prestigious Nastro d’Argento / Silver Ribbon Award of the association of Italian film critics for Best European Film presented in Italy.
Celebrating his 65th birthday in April 2012, Stuhr promised that he would return to the stage in coming months after a year-long hiatus and his recent battle with cancer. He will make an appearance in Luca Manfredi’s Ultimo Papa Re / Last Pope King. Filmed on Aventine Hill, in the town of Nepi and Frascati, the film spans from the end of the Papal States to the birth of the Italian state under the papal monarchy of Pope Pium IX's monarchy. Stuhr plays the role of the Jesuit general.
Sources: culture.pl, RBcasting, Familiam, Millenium
Editor: Marta Jazowska