ReFocus: The Films of Agnieszka Holland

"With more than 40 feature films to her name – and counting –　film director Agnieszka Holland may be the most prolific female filmmaker in history today. Elżbieta Ostrowska weaves together the multiple strands of this illustrious career in an absorbing narrative that reveals a persistency of vision in the name of an unobstructed creativity. From the studio system of communist Poland to Hollywood's production machine to a variety of European discursive agendas, Holland's creative and public persona emerges all over again -- unscathed, and with renewed vigor and ingenuity against the odds of adverse industrial, critical and nationalist discourses. A fascinating case study of a nomadic pioneer of transnational filmmaking." -- Dina Iordanova, Emeritus Professor in Global Cinema, University of St Andrews, Scotland
"Combining meticulous research, critical acumen, and　 theoretical sophistication, Ostrowska　 judiciously tracks the ways in which the concerns of ethics, politics, identity, gender and spirituality have criss-crossed　 Holland’s provocative oeuvre. Particularly impressive is her tenacious grasp of its Protean　 shifts between auteurism, national and transnational cinema, Hollywood, and ‘women’s cinema’" -- Paul Coates, Emeritus Professor of Film Studies, Western University, Canada
Through close textual and contextual analyses (paying attention to production contexts and modes of circulation) of Holland’s films along the three intersecting axes of authorship, women’s cinema and transnational cinema, this study yields original insights that go far beyond a conventional auteur cinema approach. Based on meticulous research, Refocus: The Films of Agnieszka Holland traces the fragmented, hard-to-narrativize history of Eastern European fictional filmmaking. -- Jury members * The Janovics Center Award for Outstanding Humanities Research in Transnational Film and Theatre Studies *
Ostrowska’s book is a veritable scholarly monograph in the sense that it not only reports on Holland’s life and oeuvre but also carefully filters the material through various film studies frameworks. In doing so, the author not only sheds interpretative light on specific issues within Holland’s oeuvre but also meaningfully reinterprets the frameworks and theoretical approaches themselves. -- Teréz Vincze * Eastern European Screen Studies *