Saturday, January 10, 2026 at 5:40 PM
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St, New York, NY 10002
Q&A with cinematographer Łukasz Żal moderated by cinematographer Jomo Fray

Metrograph will host a special Q&A with cinematographer Łukasz Żal, moderated by cinematographer Jomo Fray. Żal, an acclaimed Polish cinematographer, is best known for his work on Ida, Loving Vincent, Cold War, The Zone of Interest, and Hamnet. In 2026, he was once again shortlisted for an Oscar, this time for Hamnet, further cementing his reputation as one of the most influential cinematographers of his generation. During the event, Żal will discuss his work on Hamnet and share insights into his creative process.

1580 England. Impoverished Latin tutor William Shakespeare meets free-spirited Agnes, and the pair, captivated by one another, strike up a torrid affair that leads to marriage and three children. Yet as Will pursues a budding theater career in far-away London, Agnes anchors the domestic sphere alone. When tragedy strikes, the couple’s once-unshakable bond is tested, but their shared experience sets the stage for the creation of Shakespeare’s timeless masterpiece, Hamlet. From Focus Features and Academy Award® winning filmmaker Chloé Zhao (Nomadland, The Rider) comes a sensitively observed, magnificently crafted tale about the complexities of love and the healing power of art and creativity.

Director: Chloé Zhao
Year: 2025
Running Time: 125 minutes
Format: DCP
Distributor: Focus Features

Łukasz Żal, born on 24 June 1981, Łukasz Żal is regarded as one of the most outstanding cinematographers of his generation in Poland. His work on Paweł Pawlikowski’s Ida — considered one of the most remarkable cinematographic debuts in recent years — earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography.

His body of work includes acclaimed titles such as Joanna directed by Aneta Kopacz, Paparazzi by Piotr Bernaś, and Ida by Paweł Pawlikowski. Over the course of his career, he has received numerous distinctions, including a European Film Award, a BAFTA nomination, two Golden Frogs at the Camerimage Festival, and an Academy Award nomination.

Despite being early in his career at the time of his breakthrough, Żal quickly became one of the most internationally recognized figures of Polish cinema. Variety named him among the most promising cinematographers to watch, and in February 2014 he received the Spotlight Award for Ida from the prestigious American Society of Cinematographers.

Łukasz Żal graduated from the Cinematography Department of the National Film School in Łódź in 2008, as well as from the AFA School of Photography in Wrocław. For one of his early student films, Master of the World — available on the Łódź Film School website — he received the Offskar Award for Independent Polish Cinema.

The film, which Żal also directed, was an adaptation of a short story by Etgar Keret from the collection Missing Kissinger (trans. A. Maciejowska, Warsaw, 2008). It tells the story of a young boy whose father is celebrating his fiftieth birthday — an event that marks a turning point in the boy’s life. Depicting a single day in the protagonist’s world, the film allowed Żal to experiment with a dynamic, character-driven camera moving through a deserted town, capturing both the irony and melancholy characteristic of Keret’s writing.

After graduating, Żal served as cinematographer on God’s Little Village directed by Jacek Bromski. He worked under the mentorship of Ryszard Lenczewski, the first cinematography professor at the National Film School in Łódź, with whom he later collaborated on Paweł Pawlikowski’s Ida. In addition to his feature film work, Żal has created music videos, sitcoms, and commercials, collaborating with brands such as Nike, Mercedes, Bosch & Siemens, and Credit Agricole.

A pivotal moment in Łukasz Żal’s career was the documentary Paparazzi directed by Piotr Bernaś, a film that examined not only the life of one of Poland’s most prominent paparazzi, Przemysław Stoppa, but also the moral ambiguities and sensationalism of contemporary media. In 2013, two further projects featuring Żal’s cinematography premiered: Left Side of the Face by Marcin Bortkiewicz — which earned him an award at the Al Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival in Doha — and Joanna by Aneta Kopacz, the latter widely recognized as a powerful testament to his artistic sensitivity.

Kopacz’s Joanna tells the story of Joanna Sałyga, a young woman documenting the final months of her life while battling cancer. Rather than focusing on death, the film became a meditation on life, resilience, and beauty. In 2015, it received an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary (Short Subject). Shortly thereafter, Żal joined the production of Ida directed by Paweł Pawlikowski. Initially serving as camera operator under cinematographer Ryszard Lenczewski, Żal assumed the role of lead cinematographer when Lenczewski fell ill, marking his feature-length debut. Ida brought him international acclaim, including the Golden Frog at Camerimage, a European Film Award, a BAFTA Award, an Academy Award nomination, and honors from both the American and Polish Societies of Cinematographers.

Żal’s subsequent projects further cemented his reputation for visual innovation. He collaborated on Loving Vincent, the world’s first fully painted feature-length animation, created from 65,000 oil paintings inspired by the works of Vincent van Gogh and produced by a team of 125 artists. In 2018, his cinematography shaped the visual language of Dovlatov directed by Aleksei German Jr., chronicling several days in the life of Russian writer Sergei Dovlatov. Żal reunited with Paweł Pawlikowski for Cold War, a visually striking black-and-white drama that earned three Academy Award nominations in 2019, including Best Cinematography — Żal’s second Oscar nomination. Celebrated for its poetic compositions and references to the Polish Film School, the French New Wave, and the work of Wojciech Jerzy Has, Cold War marked another milestone in his internationally acclaimed career.

After achieving international acclaim, Łukasz Żal worked as a cinematographer on his first American set: I’m Thinking of Ending Things, directed by Charlie Kaufman, the creative mind behind Synecdoche, New York (director and writer), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Being John Malkovich (writer). In a conversation with Variety, Żal explained some of the challenges he faced on the project, including how to convincingly depict snow at the end of March and how to visually differentiate between reality and memory. Kaufman also envisioned the film to look like a painting. To achieve this, Żal employed a 4:3 aspect ratio—a choice he had previously used in Ida—which amplified the film’s anxious and claustrophobic atmosphere.

In Hollywood, Żal balanced commercial work with more experimental, artistic projects. He shot commercials for prestigious brands while collaborating with directors who continually pushed the boundaries of cinematic language in search of new forms of expression.

In 2023, Żal served as cinematographer for the experimental music film Circus Maximus, directed by Travis Scott, collaborating with luminaries such as Harmony Korine, Gaspar Noé, and Nicolas Winding Refn. That same year in Poland, he worked with Jonathan Glazer on The Zone of Interest, a provocative film depicting the banality of evil through the eyes of an Auschwitz German Nazi concentration camp commander. The film broke with traditional cinematic portrayals of the Holocaust by avoiding emotional manipulation and instead prompting viewers to reflect on the nature of evil.

A year later, Żal contributed one of the most celebrated works of his career with Hamnet, directed by Chloé Zhao, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker of Nomadland. The film explores the fictionalized story of William Shakespeare’s wife mourning the death of her son, Hamnet. The costume drama blends Hollywood grandeur with an intimate, personal story of love and loss. The richly realized Elizabethan world, co-created with Polish costume designer Małgosia Turzańska, is captured through Żal’s cinematography, evoking both heartbreak and beauty.

In 2026, Łukasz Żal was among the artists shortlisted for an Oscar for Best Cinematography, cementing his place as one of the most influential cinematographers of his generation.

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Co-presented with the Polish Cultural Institute, New York.