Wojciech Pszoniak is a Polish

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 film and theater actor.

Pszoniak gained international visibility following Andrzej Wajda

Andrzej Wajda

Andrzej Wajda is a Polish film director. Recipient of an honorary Oscar, he is possibly the most prominent member of the unofficial "Polish Film School"...

's 1975 film The Promised Land

The Promised Land

The Promised Land is a 1975 Polish film directed by Andrzej Wajda, based on a novel by Władysław Reymont. Set in the industrial city of Łódź, The Promised Land tells the story of a Pole, a German, and a Jew struggling to build a factory in the raw world of 19th century capitalism.Wajda presents a...

, in which he played Moritz, one of the three main characters.

The actor left Poland during the period of political unrest in 1980-1981, which saw the appearance of the Solidarity trade union and ended with the imposition of martial law

Martial law in Poland

Martial law in Poland refers to the period of time from December 13, 1981 to July 22, 1983, when the authoritarian government of the People's Republic of Poland drastically restricted normal life by introducing martial law in an attempt to crush political opposition to it. Thousands of opposition...

 on December 13, 1981. Pszoniak found roles in France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, where he is currently living and working. Since the fall of communism

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

 in Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

 in 1989, Pszoniak has appeared in Polish movies and plays.

Internationally, he simplified his first name into Wojtek, which is the standard diminutive of the relatively formal Wojciech in the Polish language.

Pszoniak often plays Jewish characters, although he is not of Jewish descent. In France, this is partially attributable to his role in The Promised Land, as well as his foreign accent.

Pszoniak did not speak French when he emigrated to France, so he learned his theatrical lines phonetically; in movies like Danton

Danton (1983 film)

Danton is a 1983 French language film depicting the last months of Georges Danton, one of the leaders of the French Revolution. It is an adaptation of the Polish play The Danton Case by Stanislawa Przybyszewska....

, where he played Robespierre, his voice was dubbed. An anecdote about his language skills relates that when he finally started speaking French, one director told him that he preferred his old accent.

Selected filmography

• The Wedding
  The Wedding (1972 film)
  Wesele is a motion picture made in 1972 in Poland by Andrzej Wajda as an adaptation of a play by the same title written by Stanisław Wyspiański in 1901. Wajda also directed "Wesele" for the theatre....
  
  (1972)
• The Promised Land (1975)
• Danton
  Danton (1983 film)
  Danton is a 1983 French language film depicting the last months of Georges Danton, one of the leaders of the French Revolution. It is an adaptation of the Polish play The Danton Case by Stanislawa Przybyszewska....
  
  (1983)
• Austeria
  Austeria
  Austeria is a Polish film directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz, released in 1983.Austeria takes place during the opening days of World War I, in the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia. Tag is a Jewish innkeeper whose inn is located near the border with Russia...
  
  (1983)
• Dangerous Moves (1984)
• Les Années sandwiches (1988)
• Korczak (1990)
• Chaos
  Chaos (2001 film)
  Chaos is a 2001 French film written and directed by Coline Serreau.Currently, a remake of this movie in English, to star Aishwarya Rai and Meryl Streep, is planned.- Plot :...
  
  (2001)
• Robert Mitchum est mort (2011)
• Battle of Warsaw 1920 (2011)

External links