Head of the Institute| Professor

Mirosław Przylipiak, professor of film and media studies at the University of Gdańsk, film critic, translator, documentary filmmaker. His main publications include the books Kino stylu zerowego/Zero Style Cinema (1994, sec. edition 2016), Kino najnowsze/New Cinema (1998), Poetyka kina dokumentalnego/Aesthetics of documentary cinema (2000, sec. ed. 2004), three books on American direct cinema, about 150 academic papers on various aspects of film and media, and numerous film reviews. He translated nearly 30 books, mostly from the fields of psychology and film, and some poetry. He also made several documentary films and series of television educational programmes. Mirosław Przylipiak is a founder and first managing director of Academic Educational Television of Gdańsk University. He has been awarded many grants and fellowships, from the Fulbright Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and the Polish Ministry of Higher Education, among others. His main areas of interest are: theory and aesthetics of cinema, documentary film, American direct cinema, and Polish cinema.

Head of the Department| Associate Professor

Krzysztof Kornacki specializes in the history of Polish cinema. He is the author of books: Polish cinema against Catholicism 1945 – 1970 (nominated for the Bolesław Michałek Prize), Ashes and Diamonds by Andrzej Wajda (Fredro’s Penal Prize); co-founder and the first president of the Gdańsk University Film Discussion Club The Loves of Blonde, member of the Editors Council in the Audiovisual Culture magazine Panoptikum, awarded with the medal of the National Commission of Education. He works at the University of Gdańsk, Gdynia Film School, The Academy of Polish Film and The Academy of Film Education in Ostrołęka.

Professor

Jerzy Szyłak DSc (born 1960) – professor at the University of Gdańsk. The author of several works on comics and a few about cinema and transformations taking place in contemporary culture. His most famous publication is Comic Books: The Overdrawn World. The most important works in his career are the monographs: The Comic book in the Iconic Culture of the 20th Century. Introduction to Poetics of Comic Books (1999), Aesthetics of Comic Books. Iconic and Linguistic Layer (2000) and Body Games. On the Images of Women in Contemporary Culture (2002, extended re-edition in 2013). All of them bring together reflections on the changes in culture by the analysis of literature, film, photography, and, of course, comic books. There was a time when Jerzy Szyłak also tried to be a cartoonist, but nowadays he only writes scenarios for other comic book creators. In his comic book, there is a clear striving for provocation, violation of social conventions or boundaries of good taste, and exploration of frontier areas of life.

Associate Professor

Film and media historian. Fields of interest: animated film, history of movie-going, Polish cinema before WWII, early cinema, history of comics and graphic novels. Author of three books: Małe wielkie kino. Film animowany od narodzin do końca okresu klasycznego (Great but Small Movies. Animated Film from the Beginning to the early 1950s, 2009), Polska szkoła animacji (Polish School of Animation, 2011) oraz Miki i myszy. Walt Disney i film rysunkowy w przedwojennej Polsce (Of Mickey and Mice. Walt Disney and Cartoon Film in Pre-War Poland, 2012), and several dozen of articles. Co-author of Powieści graficzne. Leksykon (Graphic Novels: A Lexicon, 2015, ed. by S. J. Konefał). Editor in chief of “Przezrocze” journal.

Associate Professor

Film critic, scholar and columnist. Assistant professor at the Institute of Cultural Studies at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. Visiting lecturer at the Faculty of Film Production at the Film School in Łódź and at the University of Gdańsk. The director of Cinemaforum short film festival in Warsaw. The winner of Krzysztof Mętrak contest for young film critics (2011). Awarded with a scholarship of the Foundation for Polish Science (in 2010 and 2011). The author of Global Hollywood, European film and Polish cinema after 1989 (2010) and Besides the Screen. The prospects for production studies and social functioning of film (2014). Member of Polish Filmmakers Association and FIPRESCI. As a film critic and journalist, he contributes regularly to various film magazines.

Philosophiae doctor

Łukasz Biskupski is realising a grant of the National Science Center in Poland post doctoral fellow (“Fuga” programme). Before joining the University of Gdańsk, he received his doctorate from SWPS University in Warsaw (cultural studies). In his first book, The City of Attractions (2013), he analysed the emergence of cinema as a social, economic and cultural institution in the city of Łódź before 1914. In his Involved Cinephilia (2017, upcoming) he explored the emergence of an alternative film culture in Poland in the 1930’s focusing on the Society for the Promotion of Film Art START. His current project is concentrated on the economic history of the Polish film production company “Sfinks” in the context of the film industry in the interwar period.

Expertise: cultural, social and economic history of Polish cinema, history of popular culture, cultural production, visual culture.