Malgorzata Szumowska Quotes

I found my personal style in black humor and mixing funny things with very touching ones - like trying to force people to cry and smile almost at the same moment.

A body - physical, astral, dead - might be treated as an object, might be adored and hated. So this story has emerged from the material that the body is.

Poland and my roots are very important for me. That's why I decided to make a feature film in Poland, and with only Polish money.

I'm a producer, writer, director. I'm putting everything together very fast, and I'm strong and focused on making the next film as fast as possible. From one film to the other, I'm getting better. I'm learning - that's my style.

This mixture of Polish, not Polish, of being European, gives me a perspective to see Poland through "new eyes" - paradoxically, more closely... because it's from a kind of distance.

In Poland, some people think that I'm kind of scandalous because I'm a woman who should stay at home with her kids instead of making movies about what I want and, even worse, addressing Polish taboos like church, homosexuals and history.

I wanted to make a film about anorexia. I thought about it for a long time, but then gave up on this idea as I felt that this theme would be so hermetic and closed that it would not reach an audience. However, the plot about the character of Olga and the idea that a body has a lot of different meanings were still present in my mind.

My horizons are also broadened by working with so many people around Europe. They taught me what I never would have learned just staying in my own country.

The attitude of the Catholic Church towards homosexuality is well known - it is treated as something unnatural, even as a disease.

At the moment, I'm focusing on these kind of "small" films - maybe after that, I will make bigger films in English.

My films are doing well in Polish cinemas, so I don't really have problems financing them, and my international accolades are helpful.

People don't understand that my films is not about being scandalous - it's about being critical of our own society.

My film is very simple: An Eastern European story full of black humor about things everyone can feel and understand.