The Art Teacher from Drohobycz – Bruno Schulz by the Quay Brothers

PREMIERE – On the exact 80th anniversary of the death of Bruno Schulz (19th November 1942), one of Poland’s greatest prose writers of the 20th century, the Polish Cultural Institute presents a film realised by the award-winning short filmmakers, the Quay Brothers, about Bruno Schulz’s life and work. Schulz was a Polish-Jewish writer, illustrator, painter, graphic artist and art teacher who was born in Drohobycz and spent his entire life there. He was an acute observer of life around him. In his writings he also brought back the magical reality of Poland’s pre-war shtetl’s. His most famous works were The Street of Crocodiles and the Hourglass Sanatorium. In 1986, the Street of Crocodiles was made into a puppet animation bythe Quay Brothers and the short film made by them, was decsribed by Terry Gilliam a one of the ten best animated films of all time. Bruno Schulz’s literary and artistic talents have also been recognised internationally, for example in 1992, UNESCO announced the Year of Bruno Shulz on the 100th anniversary of his birth. This year, in recognistion of Schulz’s talents as an artist and writer, Poland made 2022 the Year of Bruno Schulz.

Lost Childhood – The Cruel Fate of Bruno Schulz | In Focus
The tragically short life of writer and artist Bruno Schulz has been summarized: “Born an Austrian, lived as a Pole and died as a Jew.” Revered as the “Polish Kafka”, many of the modernist master’s dreamlike, mystical drawings and paintings were feared lost. A German film maker spent years seeking Bruno Schulz’s last frescoes and has built an installation of projections of the long-lost works.