Wojciech Brydzinski

Biography

Born under the double-headed eagle of Austria-Hungary on 28 January 1877 in the bustling Galician rail-junction of Stanislau—today’s Ivano-Frankivsk—Wojciech Brydziński grew up to trade small-town cobblestones for the glow of klieg lights. Between the silent flicker of Dzieje grzechu in 1911 and the sweeping poetic vistas of Pan Tadeusz seventeen years later, he built a screen and stage career that spanned empires, wars, and the birth of talkies. Even after Poland’s TV era dawned, he could still be spotted on Television Theater in 1953, proving his craft had no expiration date. Brydziński’s final curtain fell in Warsaw on 4 May 1966, leaving behind a portfolio that stitched together three generations of Polish cinema.