Aleksander Ford Age, Birthday, Biography, Wiki, Movies & More

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Aleksander Ford (born Mosze Lifszyc) was a Polish film director; and head of the Polish People’s Army Film Crew in the Soviet Union during World War II. Ford became director of the nationalized Film Polski company following the Red Army occupation of Poland.

In 1948 the new communist authorities appointed him professor of the National Film School in Łódź. Roman Polanski was among his students. Another of Ford’s protégés was the Polish film director Andrzej Wajda.

Ford made his first feature film, Mascot in 1930, after a year of making short silent films. He did not use sound until The Legion of the Streets (1932). When World War II began, Ford escaped to the Soviet Union and worked closely with Jerzy Bossak to establish a film unit for the Soviet-sponsored People’s Army of Poland in the USSR. The unit was called Czołówka Filmowa Ludowego Wojska Polskiego (or simply Czołówka; spearhead).

After the war, Ford was appointed head of the government-controlled Film Polski and held enormous sway over the country’s entire film industry. In the process of accumulating power he denounced a fellow film director, Jerzy Gabryelski, to the NKVD secret police, contentiously accusing him of “reactionary” and “antisemitic” views, which resulted in Gabryelski’s arrest and torture. Ford and a group of colleagues from the Polish Communist Party rebuilt most of the country’s film production infrastructure. Roman Polanski wrote in his biography about them: “They included some extremely competent people, notably Aleksander Ford, a veteran party member, who was then an orthodox Stalinist. […] The real power broker during the immediate postwar period was Ford himself, who established a small film empire of his own.” For the next twenty years, Ford served as professor at the state-run National Film School in Łódź. He is perhaps best remembered for directing the first postwar documentary Majdanek – cmentarzysko Europy (Majdanek – the Cemetery of Europe) and the feature film Knights of the Teutonic Order (1960), based on a novel of the same name by Polish author Henryk Sienkiewicz.

Ford, a self-identified Communist, used his films to “express social messages on the screen,” as in his documentaries: the award-winning Legion ulicy, (The Street Legion, 1932), Children Must Laugh (1936) and the postwar Eighth Day of the Week (1958) rejected by the communist party censors during the Polish October. Ford continued making films in Poland until the 1968 Polish political crisis. Accused of antisocialist activity and expelled from the Communist Party, Ford emigrated to Israel where he lived for the next two years. He later moved to Denmark and eventually settled in the United States. Ford made two more feature films, both of which were commercial and critical failures. In 1973, he made a film adaptation of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s novel The First Circle, a Danish-Swedish production that recounted the horrors of the Soviet gulag. In 1975 he made The Martyr (de), an English language, Israeli-German co-production based on the heroic story of Dr. Janusz Korczak. Blacklisted by the Polish communist government as a political defector, Ford became a non-person in contemporary discussions and analysis of Polish filmmaking. Isolated, he committed suicide in a Florida hotel on 4 April 1980.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Aleksander Ford

Aleksander Ford Biography / Wiki

NameAleksander Ford
Also KnowAlexander Ford, Александр Форд, Mosze Lifszyc
GenderMale
Known ForDirecting
Place of BirthKijów, Imperium Rosyjskie (obecnie Ukraina)
Date of Birth1908-11-24
Age(as in 2022)71
Deathday1980-04-04

Aleksander Ford Acting Movies

Movie NameCharacterRelease DateOverview
Olek2006-01-01When in a small village appears a little boy named Olek, the life of its inhabitants change. Olek senses danger….

Aleksander Ford Directing Movies

Movie NameJobRelease DateOverview
Knights of the Teutonic OrderDirector1960-09-02A tale of a young impoverished nobleman, who with his uncle returns from a war against the order of the Teutonic Knights in Lithuania. He falls in lov…
The Eighth Day of the WeekDirector1958-08-26Zbigniew Cybulski and Sonja Ziemann play lovers struggling to find happiness and privacy in overcrowded Warsaw. The movie shows an honest picture of l…
Young ChopinDirector1952-03-25As directed by Aleksander Ford in 1952, this Polish-language period drama chronicles the life, times and accomplishments of revered Warsaw-born Romant…
The First Day of FreedomDirector1964-06-08Freed Polish soldiers are trapped in a small town in Germany during the last days of World War II. After a doctor’s daughter is raped by a concentrati…
You Are Free, Dr. KorczakDirector1975-04-09
Five from Barska StreetDirector1954-02-27In war-ravaged Warsaw, five juvenile delinquents are given probation for stealing, to rehabilitate themselves, but remain under the influence of their…
The Doctor Speaks OutDirector1966-06-09A serious Swiss melodrama/documentary about abortion, marketed as a sexy exploitation movie in the US. The film contains real medical footage….
Children Must LaughDirector1936-12-31One of the few surviving documentaries about Jewish life in Poland before World War II, this film was produced to raise funds for the Vladimir Medem S…
Border StreetDirector1948-01-11The story of Polish and Jewish families living side by side in one Warsaw street. Everything changes once and for all with the Nazi invasion….
SabraDirector1933-01-02Describe the harsh reality attempts of establishing a Jewish settlement in Israel and the efforts of the Arab to prevent it. The film is considered as…
The First CircleDirector1973-11-10The story of the life of a political prisoner in a Russian gulag. Based on the book by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn…
Majdanek – Cemetery of EuropeDirector1945-06-21Movie filmed directly after the liberation of the concentration camp at Majdanek….
Legion of the StreetsDirector1932-06-01Jozek unexpectedly is put to a harsh test when his mother, a seamstress by profession, succumbs to an unfortunate accident and is forced to lie in bed…
The People of the VistulaDirector1938-07-23A look at the lives of people who work on the barges and boats flowing across the Vistula River….
Przysięgamy ziemi polskiejDirector1943-09-01

Writing

Movie NameJobRelease DateOverview
Five from Barska StreetWriter1954-02-27In war-ravaged Warsaw, five juvenile delinquents are given probation for stealing, to rehabilitate themselves, but remain under the influence of their…
The Eighth Day of the WeekWriter1958-08-26Zbigniew Cybulski and Sonja Ziemann play lovers struggling to find happiness and privacy in overcrowded Warsaw. The movie shows an honest picture of l…
Knights of the Teutonic OrderDialogue1960-09-02A tale of a young impoverished nobleman, who with his uncle returns from a war against the order of the Teutonic Knights in Lithuania. He falls in lov…
Knights of the Teutonic OrderScreenplay1960-09-02A tale of a young impoverished nobleman, who with his uncle returns from a war against the order of the Teutonic Knights in Lithuania. He falls in lov…
Young ChopinScreenplay1952-03-25As directed by Aleksander Ford in 1952, this Polish-language period drama chronicles the life, times and accomplishments of revered Warsaw-born Romant…
The First CircleScreenplay1973-11-10The story of the life of a political prisoner in a Russian gulag. Based on the book by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn…
Border StreetScreenplay1948-01-11The story of Polish and Jewish families living side by side in one Warsaw street. Everything changes once and for all with the Nazi invasion….
SabraWriter1933-01-02Describe the harsh reality attempts of establishing a Jewish settlement in Israel and the efforts of the Arab to prevent it. The film is considered as…

Other Info

Movie NameJobRelease DateOverview
Przysięgamy ziemi polskiejEditor1943-09-01

Credit: TMDB

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