Born in Warsaw in 1948, Agnieszka Holland studied in Prague at FAMU, where she was a friend of Václav Havel and Miloš Forman, and worked as an assistant to Krzysztof Zanussi and Andrzej Wajda. She was a part of the Polish 'Cinema of Moral Anxiety' with Provincial Actors (1979). Under martial law she left Poland for France, and made Angry Harvest (1985) and Europa Europa (1990), based on the true story of a Jewish boy who survived the Holocaust by posing as a member of the Hitler Youth, which was nominated for an Oscar for its screenplay. She also directed episodes of The Wire and made The Secret Garden (1993), Spoor (2017) and Green Border (2023).
Filmography
- Angry Harvest (1985)
- Europa Europa (1990)
- Olivier, Olivier (1992)
- The Secret Garden (1993)
- Total Eclipse (1995)
- Washington Square (1997)
- Julie Walking Home (2002)
- Burning Bush (2013)
- Spoor (2017)
- Mr. Jones (2019)
- Charlatan (2020)
- Green Border (2023)