- To work with somebody like Andrzej Bartkowiak, an uncompromising and highly professional director of photography, is a unique opportunity - says Feliks Novikov, a Lodz Film School cinematography graduate and a first year PhD student. - He thinks that when shooting everything should be perfect. It feels it is something much more important than just a student film.

The shooting of the film "Joe pulls Jack" supervised by Andrzej Bartkowiak took place near Piątek from 10 - 14 March.

Emil Kalus, a third year cinematography student was the director of photography and the shoot coordinator. - The hostages are kept in a building, and the assault group are trying to save their lives – says Feliks Novikov about the film. - One of the hostages is a younger brother of the assault group commander.

Andrzej Bartkowiak, a Hollywood cinematographer and director, was born in Lodz. In 1972, still a Lodz Film School student, he left for the USA , where he started his career from making advertisements and independent productions ("Deadly Hero" by Ivan Nagy with Treat Williams, or "Father Damian" with Don Murray). He started his feature film career with "Prince of the City", the first out of 11 films by Sydney Lumet, on which he worked as a director of photography (others include "Family Business", "A Stranger Among Us" and "The Verdict", which got an Oscar nomination). In his filmography there are also "Hard Promises" by James Lee Brooks (5 Oscars), " Prizzi’s Honor " by John Huston, "The Devil’s Advocate" by Taylor Hackford, "Dante’s Peak" by Roger Donaldson and many others, mainly made for Warner Bros. Since the year 2000 he has directed "Romeo Must Die", "Exit Wounds", "Cradle 2 the Grave", and a science fiction horror "Doom" based on a popular computer game.

Photos: Tomasz Sajewski, Alicja Adamska and Łukasz Dziedzic