ReFocus: The Films of Paweł Pawlikowski

Elżbieta Ostrowska, PhD, is an Associate Professor at the Department of Film and Audiovisual Media at the University of Łódź, Poland. Her most recent book is ReFocus: The Films of Agnieszka Holland (2024). Her articles have appeared in Slavic Review, Studies in European Cinema, and Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Joanna Rydzewska is Senior Lecturer in Film and TV Studies at Swansea University, UK. Her research focuses on European and Eastern European cinema with particular emphasis on exile, migration and transnational film studies. She has published in the Journal of European Cinema, Journal of British Cinema and Television, and Critical Studies in Television.

• List of FiguresAcknowledgementsIntroduction1. Departures and Returns2. Authorial InvestmentsPart I. BBC, Documentaries and Beyond3. Early Documentaries 1987 – 1990: In Search of a Voice4. Late Documentaries 1990 – 1995: In Search of a Style5. Between Fact and Fiction: The Grave Case of Charlie Chaplin and The StringerPart II. The English Trilogy6. Poetry of the Quotidian: Twockers7. Cartographies of the New Europe: Last Resort8. Conjuring Englishness: My Summer of Love Part III. The French Interlude9. In Search of an Author: The Woman in the FifthPart IV. Polish Returns, Modernist Aesthetics10. Postsecular Modernity and Polish-Jewish Relations: Ida 11. Music, Space and Identity: Cold War ConclusionFilmographyReferencesIndex

This book is a tour de force in auteur scholarship. Ostrowska and Rydzewska offer not only the first comprehensive study of Paweł Pawlikowski’s body of work but also a groundbreaking contribution to contemporary debates on authorship in transnational cinema. Their concept of ‘neoliberal authorship’ is as timely as it is insightful, illuminating the evolving conditions of artistic autonomy within today’s global media industries. With meticulous textual analysis and deep contextual grounding, this volume will become an indispensable reference for scholars of European cinema and global film authorship.