
Aleksander Bardini
Acting
Biography
Aleksander Bardini (17 November 1913 – 30 July 1995) was a Polish actor, theatre director, artistic director, and educator.Born in Łódź to a Jewish family, after finishing high school in 1932 he studied violin and performed in the string quartet of the Jewish Music Association as well as in a Jewish cabaret. In 1935 he graduated from the Acting Department of PIST in Warsaw.He worked as an actor at the Municipal Theatre in Wilno (Vilnius) (1935–1936) and at the Polish Theatre in Warsaw (1938). In 1939 he joined the COP Travelling Theatre. For the 1939/40 season he was engaged by the Municipal Theatres in Lwów (Lviv), where he remained until 1941, working as both actor and director.During the German occupation he was initially in the Lviv ghetto, then hid in a private apartment. He returned to the Polish Dramatic Theatre in Lviv in 1944, where he served as a member of the artistic council, director, actor, and head of the acting studio until the company’s evacuation in August 1945.In the 1945/46 season he moved with the Lviv ensemble to the Municipal Theatre in Katowice. He had planned to join the Polish Army Theatre in Łódź for the 1946/47 season, but after the Kielce pogrom in July 1946 he decided to emigrate. Between 1946 and 1950 he lived in the USA, Canada, and West Germany, working manual labour and collaborating with the Jewish theatre in Munich.He returned to Poland in 1950. Until 1957 he worked as a director at the Polish Theatre in Warsaw. His greatest achievement of that period was the first postwar staging of Adam Mickiewicz’s Dziady (Forefathers’ Eve). He also occasionally appeared as an actor.In the 1957/58 season he was artistic consultant and director at the Stefan Jaracz Theatre in Łódź. From 1958 to 1960 he served as director and artistic manager of the Ateneum Theatre in Warsaw. Between 1960 and 1964 he was an actor and director at the Contemporary Theatre (Teatr Współczesny) in Warsaw, before returning to the Polish Theatre for the 1964/65 season. Afterwards he worked as a freelance director, staging productions in Poland and abroad.He also directed opera productions (he was a great lover and connoisseur of music). He frequently collaborated with Polish Television, hosting highly popular music programmes featuring amateurs.A talented and very popular educator, from 1950 to 1982 he taught at the Acting, Variety, and Directing Departments of the Warsaw State Theatre School (later also in Łódź). He became associate professor in 1950 and full professor in 1966. He also taught at the Warsaw Academy of Music, co-directed and lectured at summer music courses in Austria and the Netherlands, at the drama department of the University of Georgia (USA), and at the music-drama school in Stockholm.He held many positions in ZASP (Polish Actors’ Association), ZAiKS (authors’ society), and the Jewish Historical Institute (member of the scientific council).He was the father of Maria Bardini, editor and producer of Television Theatre productions.He died in Warsaw and was buried in the catacombs at the Old Powązki Cemetery.
Known For

After his handler is killed, police dog Rex teams up with recently-divorced inspector Richard Moser to investigate crimes and solve mysteries on the streets of Vienna. And they sometimes get help from their two-legged friend, Inspector Stockinger.
Inspector Rex

The Ten Commandments, exact and uncompromising, literally cast in stone, continues to provide a source of moral conflict in contemporary society. In the ten part epic masterpiece, The Decalogue, Krzysztof Kieslowski examines the dilemma of fundamental sin in the lives of ordinary Warsaw citizens.
Dekalog

Christopher Lee hosts this horror anthology series from Poland with stories from various classic authors.
Theatre Macabre

An epic, multi-threaded story about the fate of Poles during World War II. "Czas pogardy" was shown primarily from the perspective of two main characters - Lieutenant Władysław Niwiński and Leon Kuraś - a petty crook, but not without heroic traits. The authors of the series sought to show, in particular, everyday life under Nazi occupation in Poland.
Polskie drogi

Crime series about Hamburg customs investigator Hans Zaluskowski, who joins forces with his colleagues to take on smugglers and fraudsters. In doing so, he not only has to contend with opaque EU customs regulations, but also solve tricky cases with international implications.
Schwarz Rot Gold

Polish immigrant Karol Karol finds himself out of a marriage, a job and a country when his French wife, Dominique, divorces him after six months due to his impotence. Forced to leave France after losing the business they jointly owned, Karol enlists fellow Polish expatriate Mikołaj to smuggle him back to their homeland.
Three Colors: White

Véronique is a beautiful young French woman who aspires to be a renowned singer; Weronika lives in Poland, has a similar career goal and looks identical to Véronique, though the two are not related. The film follows both women as they contend with the ups and downs of their individual lives, with Véronique embarking on an unusual romance with Alexandre Fabbri, a puppeteer who may be able to help her with her existential issues.
The Double Life of Véronique

Berlin, 1990. At the invitation of his actor friends, who have already lived abroad for many years, Max, a Polish theater director, comes to Berlin. They begin to work together. They try to realize their dream: to stage a play, the staging of which was prevented by the imposition of martial law ten years earlier. The way they raise funds (selling pieces of the "historic" wall) and struggle against the heartless machinery of bureaucracy forms the axis of the film. In their efforts, the four protagonists are assisted by Regina, a translator familiar with local customs and practices. The film deals with the problems of artists in the new, commercializing reality.
Obcy musi fruwać

1982, Poland. A translator loses her husband and becomes a victim of her own sorrow. She looks to sex, to her son, to law, and to hypnotism when she has nothing else in this time of martial law when Solidarity was banned.
No End

The story of Polish pedagogue Janusz Korczak and his dedication to protecting Jewish orphans during the war.
Korczak

Madrid, 1962. More than twenty years after the civil war has finished, a communist comes back to Spain to kill a traitor.
Prince of Shadows

The mis-adventures of three Polish-Jews on the road to Gdansk is the basis for this German comedy that was filmed in New York, Germany, and Poland. Genovefa and Moshe have been married and living in New York for 30 years. Physically the couple resembles Mr. and Mrs. Jack Sprat. The two have decided to return to Poland for a visit. They intend to have Moshe's best friend Isaac, an unlucky, depressive German, take care of their house while they are gone. Unfortunately, Isaac loses his job before they go and ends up accompanying them on a Polish freighter. When the ship dies in a German port, the threesome must go overland to Gdansk. They encounter many mishaps along the way.
Bye Bye America

A banker troubled by both business and personal problems is transferred to a small town. There he meets and seduces an older woman. Together, they decide to pull off a payroll holdup together.
The Catamount Killing

An Uruguayan diplomat brings his new wife with him on a business trip to Poland in the summer immediately preceding the outbreak of World War II.
Wherever You Are...

A father and daughter, Michał and Anka, have a unique intimacy, which the college-aged Anka is beginning to feel conflicted about. When she finds an unopened letter from her deceased mother, it seems to justify her attraction to Michał, who may not in fact be her father.
Decalogue IV

Five short stories. (1) “Czas przybliża, czas oddala” – Edward recalls his unfulfilled love for Anna and, years later, writes to her sister Zofia, mistaking her for Anna. (2) “Krąg istnienia” – A girl falls for Wacek at an ice rink; pressured by family, she marries a soap manufacturer. (3) “Paryż 1945” – A Polish refugee soldier and an American woman share a fleeting wartime bond before she leaves at dawn. (4) “Stary profesor” – Two men seek an old professor to fulfill a dying prisoner’s last wish; Roger impersonates a former pupil. (5) “Nauczycielka” – Neglected wife Zofia accepts film tests, only to find the director seeks an ordinary woman.
Spóźnieni przechodnie
This sumptuously photographed period drama is set in 1791 Vienna. Maximilian Bardo, an opportunistic 18-year old Viennese man with aspirations to rise above his bourgeois upbringing, looks for a chance to shoehorn himself into the nobility. His hopes lead him to the castle of a wealthy inventor, Alexander Plant. It is here that a strange story is played out, as Maximilian, full of naive illusions and innocent ideals of what it means to be wealthy and noble, quickly loses his innocence. Falling prey to the jaded aristocrats in residence, he is cruelly initiated into their decadent games.
Guilty of Innocence

Dorota Geller, a married woman, faces a dilemma involving her sick husband's prognosis. Her husband's doctor, who believes in God, sweared about it in vain.
Decalogue II

This is the true story about a group of Romani's (gypsy) in occupied Poland during World War II as they confront the atrocities and tragedies of a forgotten holocaust.
And the Violins Stopped Playing

A biology professor, Adam enters a hospital for observation. He is a loner and a serious-minded man, who dislikes any display of emotions. He spends three months in the hospital while being tested. After observing patients and hospital routines around him from a distance, he learns that he will need a kidney transplant. Meanwhile his personal and professional life is falling apart: he refuses his wife's offer to donate the kidney for him; the scientific problem he was working on has been solved elsewhere. In the end Adam cracks under the prolonged pressure, waiting for the sound of an ambulance bringing a moribund patient whose kidney may be used for the transplant.