We’ve gathered here to honour one of our few great film-makers’, said Piotr Mikucki, Dean of the Film Direction Department. Kazimierz Karabasz, a Lodz Film School graduate, its long term professor, an unquestionable authority in the world of documentary cinema and a founder of the so-called Polish School of Documentary, a teacher of such illustrious film-makers as Krzysztof Kieślowski, Marcel Łoziński, and Wojciech Wiszniewski. The film-maker who was able to observe and present his characters with great patience, honesty and respect, was granted Alma Mater - the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa.

Due to his poor health Kazimierz Karabasz did not participate in the ceremony. Krystyna Ciecierska, the main character of the film “Krystyna M.” (1973) collected the honorary diploma on his behalf. ‘I told him from the start that my life was not interesting’, he replied to this that everybody’s life is interesting. We had very long conversations – she said during the Ceremony. In the laudation, Andrzeja Sapija pointed out that Kazimierz Karabasz was the first documentary film-maker to make a full-length documentary about a single man, an average young Pole, “an ordinary man”, who in Karabasz’ eyes was never ordinary. Among his most well-known films there are : "Muzykanci", "Rok Franka W.", "Krystyna M.", "Spotkania".

Today, Kazimierz Karabasz, joined a group of film-makers, who were granted the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa by the Lodz Film School: Jerzy Toeplitz, Andrzej Wajda, Roman Polański, Jerzy Kawalerowicz, Wojciech Jerzy Has, Vittorio Storaro, Jerzy Mierzejewski, Zbigniew Rybczyński, Tadeusz Różewicz, Martin Scorsese, Michael Haneke and actor, Janusz Gajos. Kazimierz Karabasz is the first documentary film-maker who has received the degree from the school.

Photo: Filip Szkopiński