KRAKOWSKI'S L.ATEST FILM STARS CCNY ALUM AND WINS AWARDS
Andrzej Krakowski Andrzej Krakowski is Professor of Film & Video in CCNY's Department of Media and Communication Arts (MCA) which offers an MFA in Media Arts Production and a BFA Film & Video program.
Krakowski is from Poland and received his education at the Polish Film School in Lodz, studying theater and film directing. Before leaving Poland in 1968 for America, he was also known as a promising poet, writer, cartoonist and raconteur.
After being sent to Hollywood on a six-month scholarship, he was stripped of his citizenship and declared
persona-non-grata in Poland. Despite this, he attended the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, where his classmates included David Lynch, Terrence Malick and Paul Schrader.
Over the last three decades, Mr. Krakowski wrote, directed and/or produced over 30 feature films for major studios as well as movies for TV networks. His projects include
Triumph of the Spirit (Willem Dafoe and Edward James Olmos),
Eminent Domain (Donald Sutherland and Ann Archer),
Managua (Louis Gossett Jr., Michael Moriarty and Assumpta Serna),
Tides of War (Ernest Borgnine and David Soul), and
Portrait of a Hitman (Jack Palance and Rod Steiger).
The film school at City College is well regarded for documentary film making. For example, Krakowski's own Politics of Cancer: A Study in Chaos is a cogent examination of cancer in America which was prompted by his own wife's fight with cancer. Krakowski's social and political conscience is evident in this movie and in other works.
His latest movie, Looking for Palladin, was released in March 2009 and benefited from collaboration of fellow CCNY colleagues. It won Best Feature Film at the Sixth Queens International Film Festival and Best Film and Best Ensemble Cast awards at the Orlando Hispanic Film Festival October 2008. The film stars CCNY alum Ben Gazzara.
Krakowski feels that both the BFA and MFA programs are the hidden gems of City College – both are high quality programs with professional filmmakers as faculty who work actively in the industry, who work together on collaborative projects (as in Looking for Palladin), and who are enthusiastic about their students and art.
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