Agnieszka Smoczyńska

Agnieszka Smoczyńska is a film, theatre and opera director. She is a graduate of the Krzysztof Kieślowski Film School in Katowice and holds a degree in Cultural Studies from the University of Wrocław.

Her work is distinguished by a bold approach to form, originality, and striking visual sophistication. Smoczyńska’s films engage with socially relevant themes while playfully subverting genre conventions. She blends elements of fairy tale, horror and social drama, exploring questions of identity, human relationships and emotional experience. Her protagonists are often strong female characters who transcend traditional social roles and expectations.

She made her feature debut in 2015 with The Lure (Córki Dancingu) - a groundbreaking horror-musical hybrid that won awards worldwide, including at the Sundance Film Festival, and became part of the prestigious Criterion Collection. Her second feature, The Fugue, premiered in Cannes Critics’ Week. Four years later, she made her English-language debut with Silent Twins, based on the true story of June and Jennifer Gibbons - twin sisters who, rejecting contact with the outside world, communicated exclusively with each other through a language of their own invention. The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival and won the Golden Lions at the Gdynia Film Festival.

Smoczyńska was selected for the European Cinema: Ten Women Filmmakers to Watch program and is a recipient of the Global Filmmaking Award sponsored by the Sundance Institute. This year, she directed Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra at the Polish National Opera in Warsaw, as well as Głos Potwora, an opera by Aleksander Nowak adapted from Agnieszka Holland’s film Europa Europa. She is currently working on her next English-language feature film, Hot Spot.