festival special guest
Born in Poland in 1943, Krystian Lupa studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków and the Łódź Film School, before training as a director at the National Higher Theatre School in Kraków. His theatre career began in 1976, first at the theatre in Jelenia Góra, then, from 1984, at the Stary Teatr in Kraków.
He also collaborates with other Polish institutions in Warsaw and Wrocław, whilst having taught directing at the National Higher Theatre School in Kraków since 1983.
Many of his productions, almost all of which are inspired by novels, have been staged beyond Poland’s borders. He first came to the attention of French-speaking audiences with his production of H. Broch’s *The Sleepwalkers* in 1998 at the Odéon Théâtre de l’Europe, as part of the Festival d’Automne, and has since been a regular guest in France: Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, Zarathustra based on Friedrich Nietzsche, Factory 2 and Persona. Marilyn.
These were followed by his masterful productions based on texts by Thomas Bernhard: Extinction, Kalkwerk, Lunch at Wittgenstein’s, Place des Héros, Trees to be Felled, as well as The Trial based on F. Kafka, Balconies – Love Songs based on F.G. Lorca and J.M. Coetzee, and The Emigrants based on the novel by W.G. Sebald.