The accolade recognizes Żal’s outstanding contribution to cinema, with a citation stating that his work on the Jonathan Glazer–directed The Zone of Interest, shown in Toronto and awarded the Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, “has a chilling effect; detached from the horrors of the prison camp, the camera captures the banality of the Höss family living their everyday life outside the walls of Auschwitz, contrasted by unforgettable reminders of resistance at night, and shot in monochrome by thermal-imaging cameras”.
Adapted from a 2014 novel by Martin Amis, The Zone of Interest centers on the domestic life of Auschwitz commandant Höss and his family living in the shadow of the Nazi German concentration camp of Auschwitz.
Variety’s editor Jazz Tangcay wrote that “with his most recent film, The Zone of Interest, Łukasz Żal continues to raise the bar for inventive and avant-garde cinematography”.
Żal’s credits include two highly acclaimed films directed by Paweł Pawlikowski: Ida, which won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and Oscar-nominated Cold War.
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