Born in 1968 in Gdańsk, where he graduated from the Polish Language Department of the University of Gdańsk. Graduate of the Directing Department of the Polish Film School in Lodź. His documentaries, usually telling about "other" or "rejected" people, were shown and awarded at numerous international festivals. Member of the European Film Academy.
His documentary I will not leave you until I die (1999), a story of two handicapped, middle-aged men, who take care of each other, was shown in Chicago, Prague, Kazimierz, Stuttgart, Detroit, Prix Europa in Berlin, Rhode Island Film Festival and Port Townsend Film Festival in the US. It was also nominated for the European Film Award.
Life to live, made four years later also explored the subject of disability. It tells the story of a group of blind children, prepared for their adult life by social workers from the Educational Centre of Laski. Their portraits, sketched with discretion and tact, has been noticed at festivals in Kraków and Munich. His following film, I am with you (2004), followed a group of parents, whose children - for different reasons - had to stay in a hospital for a long time. Their longing and fear were shown with much subtlety that was appreciated by juries of the International Film Festival in Roshd, of the Aljazeera International Television Production Festival in Qatar and of the International Documentary Festival "DocuDays" in Beirut.
In 2012 Adamek directed his first fiction feature - The Photograph - but the film's fate wasn't easy. Even though it won awards for best first feature in Montreal and Trzyniec, it had to wait for years for its limited release.
(...) although imperfect, The Photograph awakens an authentic nostalgy for films about the process of growing up, youthful striving for maturity. As in Hłasko's prose, "the first step among the clouds" doesn't always lead to heaven, more often to disappointement, but it also becomes a stamp of something that could never happen later in life. Growing up, we forget about dreaming - wrote Łukasz Maciejewski ("Dziennik", 11.03.2016).
Adamek's last documentaries are Together (2014) - a story about close relationships between people and animals - and Two worlds (2015) about a couple of deaf parents, guided through the world by their twelve year old daughter.
Filmography:
- 1999 I nie opuszczę cię aż do śmierci (And I will not leave you until I die) (Main Award for best short film and for direction at the Dahlonega International Film Festival in Atlanta, 2002; Golden Baltic Herring Award at the Blue Sea Film Festival in Finland, 2002; Grand Prix at the Parnu International Documentary and Anthropology Festival in Estonia, 2002; Silver Award at the International Film Festival in Houston in the category "Film and Video - Ethnic/Cultural", 2002)
- 2001 Co dzień bliżej nieba (Every day more closely to Heaven) (Special Mention at the International Short Film Festival in Malescorto)
- 2002 Konkurs (Competition)
- 2003 Powrót (Getting back)
- 2003 Życie przed tobą (A Life to live)
- 2004 Jestem (I'm with you)
- 2005 W drodze (In the Way) (award for best documentary at the Toronto Worldwide Short Film Festival, 2006; Award of the Public at the Belo Horizonte International Short Film Festival, 2006)
- 2012 - Zdjęcie (The Photograph)
- 2014 - Razem (Together)
- 2015 - Dwa światy (Two worlds)
Source: catalogue "Young Polish Cinema" published by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, June 2007, updated by NMR, August 2016.