Andrzej Bukowiński was born on 15 March 1940 in Warsaw. His father, Mieczysław Bukowiński, was an officer in the Polish air force during WWII and a pilot in the Royal Air Force. He left Poland on a mission on 29 September 1939. Father and son were only able to reunite after the war, in 1946 in London. During the occupation period, Andrzej Bukowiński lived in Warsaw and Pruszków with his mother and siblings.
In 1949, the Bukowiński family left the UK and came to Argentina, where Andrzej Bukowiński enrolled to study architecture. In 1961, he dropped out of university and started a career as an advertisement and short film director. In 1973, he moved to Brazil, where he founded his company, the film studio Abafilmes. In 1989, he visited Poland for the first time.
Currently, Andrzej Bukowiński is considered a pioneer of advertisement. He has made over 3 thousand films – 500 of those were made in Argentina, 2.5 thousand in Brazil.
Bukowiński’s films have earned him multiple awards at the Cannes festival. In 1999, he was awarded with the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, and in 2006 with the Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis.
He was interviewed by Aleksandra Pluta on 13 May 2015 in São Paulo.
By 1946, father was already living in England and we in Poland. And there was no possibility for him to come back to Poland. Stalin killed anyone who came back, especially the pilots. So? Either the family breaks apart or we flee to where father is. So he organised it, I mean, it was an escape. There was nothing to lose. One day a man came to our house, he looked poor, badly dressed. He was a friend of father’s, he came to Poland and gave us a letter father had sent to mother in which he proposed organising an escape. We passed through Germany, before we left, fled Poland, mother – she had had a feeling she would never return. Or that we would not. And she wanted us to see the sea before we left, very important. And Częstochowa. We went to Częstochowa and she gave thanks that we were even alive. Those were two very important moments. We hopped the border to Germany. Mother had a guide she paid for with money and cigarettes that father had sent us. He organised it all. He was a guide, a Pole who worked on the railway and organised such escapes. The risk was very big. 50–60%. The risk was, if we had been caught, we would’ve been sent to Siberia and died. One night, the guide took us on a train that he knew would be crossing the border to Germany. That night, the big moon illuminated everything so it was not the best moment. We could not wait any longer. It was very dangerous. We got on that train, it was outside the station, with other cargo trains. And everything was open. And only three carriages were closed, carriages with doors. He didn’t want to risk it, told us we were going. I can’t remember if it was the second or the third carriage, I think he chose the third carriage. So now. We get on the train, and he had asked mother to buy him a hammer, some wire and nails. Why? When the train started, he closed the door shut... it was a tiny carriage, four wheels, a large window, a large tall window. He closed the door, hammered in a few nails and tied them with the wire so that the guards – the guards at the border were Russian – when inspecting – they knew there were people in there fleeing and so on. So we were sitting in that carriage, the train was moving slowly. And the guard opened the first, then the second door, went in, grabbed the first door, the carriage we were in, pulled it, couldn't open. It was late, dark, maybe the guy was drunk. If he had stopped the whole train, inspected it and opened the door then ciao, I would not be here talking to you. And that is how we crossed the border. It turned out later that he had had a deal with the German train drivers. They stopped the train, at some point they all invited us to the carriage they were in. I remember there being a heater. So it was warm. And mother and her two children travelled the rest of the way to Berlin in that carriage.
Berlin in 1946 was a nightmare. The people looked as though from a different planet. The same goes for us. We stopped at a school where everything was run by Polish soldiers. We spent a few days or weeks there, waiting for a transport in Berlin. The war was over, but Berlin was divided between Russia, France, the UK and so on. If they caught someone, the allies did not play any games, they handed any emigrants they caught over to Russia and that was it. So finally a lorry with Polish soldiers and an officer arrived and it went like this: a few families – us and a few others – were hidden in that lorry, covered with tarp that was all tied up very tightly with ropes. So we left through the border in Berlin to West Germany. That was the last stage of our escape, and I always get emotional here because it was our last contact with Poland. Those roots were severed. We arrived at a checkpoint, again with Russian soldiers. There were two drivers in the car, I mean two Polish ones and inside, with us, was a Polish officer. With a machine gun. Why? Because he said: we won’t lose this cargo. So now, it stops, ah, no matter. There was a mother with a few month-old baby with us that was on the run from Poland just like us. So we’re sitting in the lorry, it is dark. The guy with the machine gun is sitting there. And the driver is making more and more noise with the engine to drown out that baby, because it could start crying and they would find out that someone was inside. The baby did not start crying. I think we must’ve hypnotised it, it wasn’t sleeping, it was just sitting there. And the Russian soldier hit the crates with his rifle’s stock to check them and we finally heard it was okay, and so we left. And a few moments later – this is the moment I always get emotional – horn three times. Beep, beep, beep. We are saved. Yes, that is the whole story. So then we arrived at a base, German air force, organised by the Poles. And my father came there, we met for the first time, I was almost 7. Those were very emotional moments. Well, mister father. I finally met him.
Then we went to England and 3 very normal post-war years ensued after all those terrible moments. Jan went to school, father was discharged from the RAF. And there came a moment when we had to leave. The British wanted to get rid of virtually all foreigners. They were right, the island was full of foreigners, there were no jobs left for the locals. And now there’s the choice, the emigration. Now is when the story of our emigration begins. Emigration or migration? Depends on the angle you analyse it from. The States were out of the question, Europe was what it was. There were two options. Argentina or Australia? Those were the two countries that really embraced emigrants. Why did father choose Argentina? To this day, I don’t know. At least it was better, the language was the same... and in Argentina, Rosalio is the second city. They arrived at a conclusion – father and a few partners who were supposed to start a little factory. All of them were Polish ex-military men. Travelling by ship was fun. It was a nice ship. Its name was Al Cantra. It was heaven on Earth. It took a few weeks. We left from Southampton, sailed to Vigo in Spain, Las Palmas – the islands along the way – and Rio de Janeiro. Then Santon and Buenos Aires.
So in Brazil, 1989 and Poland, the Solidarity movement. I had, I still have to this day, a big poster of Solidarity, and in 1989, when Poland got rid of that damn garbage communist system in which nobody won, not the Russians, not the communists, wasted 45 years, I went back to Poland. For the first time. 11 days. The arrival was fantastic. Fantastic. It stank, but Poland was free. There were still Pewex shops (foreign currency shops) there. Everything was in short supply, flats, it was dark, everything was so... but it was free. And I was so drawn in by it, the Solidarity movement. So I met many nice people who were active in the movement. First in Cracow, then in Warsaw. And that feeling when you're a migrant who has come back to Poland for the first time. I always had regrets because of the lack of opportunities. I left, it was difficult. But those who stayed had it worse, it was even more difficult. My thoughts were, those were chaotic years when Poles, who had a need for their own country, did not have one. They survived 45 years, everything was in short supply. That was Russian, communist revenge. I’ve had this complex to this day.
I was strongly drawn to photography and cinema. I don't know the reason, but I was fascinated. I was 11 when I started taking photos, developing them and so on. When I was 16, someone lent me a 16 mm Kodak camera and I shot my first film reel. It was great fun. It was my obsession. But what do you mean make movies. The equipment was expensive, there were no jobs, no school, no nothing. And when I was 21, 1.5 years into studying architecture, I dropped out, left Rosalio and within 15 minutes I was on my way to Buenos Aires. I had been there a few times, it was fascinating to me because it was the centre of Argentina and that was where films were being made. What films? Advertisements. 1961. So I started shooting there, we founded a company. One of the first advertisement film studios and it was fascinating to me. I could not sleep or eat, I worked like a madman. I learned things. Nobody knew anything, neither did I, I would made mistakes. I would shoot and shoot.
Argentina, and later Brazil, has always welcomed and embraced emigrants. There were no rebellions. It turned out the emigrant was a bit taller than the Argentinians. And from Europe and so on. I had no traumatic experiences where everyone would treat me like an emigrant. I can say I am proud of that. The same in Brazil. In Argentina, we had this Polish house. There was a Polish mass every Sunday, Rosalio. We always honoured Polishness at home. Father and mother always felt the pull back, but they could not return. And they instilled that in me and my sister, the love for Poland. But more so in me. The practical kind of love, not the trivial kind, the real thing.
In 1964, 3 years after I started my work, I won the highest award at the festivals in Cannes and Venice. So there’s this 24-year old boy winning the first and second place, it was a very important moment of my life. And for my father, he could finally be proud of his little boy who was 7 when they first met. Mother did not live to see that, but father did. He came to the conclusion that the kids – my sister was an architect, a pretty good architect, she went to the States later. And I worked at the madhouse that was film and advertisement. They say I’m a pioneer, that I invented, but I did not invent. But I was a pioneer, for about 50 years.
