BOŻENA AND JAN WALENCIK – CURRICULUM VITAE (EN)

Bożena Walencik, zodiacal Fish, born on February 29, 1956 in Mordy near Siedlce. For her friends Beńka. A graduate of the Complex of Phototechnical Schools – Post-Secondary Vocational College in Warsaw, specializing in photography and film instructor.

Jan Walencik, zodiacal Aquarius, born on January 26, 1955 in Kazimierz Dolny. In 1975, he graduated from the Post-Secondary Co-operative Study CRS in Mińsk Mazowiecki, specializing as a visual advertising technician. In 1981, completed extramural higher education at the Faculty of Pedagogy and Psychology at the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin with a master’s degree in pedagogy.

From an early age, he was preoccupied with nature. From the 7th grade of primary school, he was keenly interested in inorganic chemistry and his own laboratory experiments in this field. In the 2nd year of high school in his hometown of Kazimierz Dolny, he became fascinated with the popularizing creativity of Włodzimierz Puchalski – the Polish pioneer of wildlife film and photography. During high school and for the following years, he was absorbed in photographing nature. At the end of his pedagogical studies, he defended his master’s dissertation on Janusz Czecz, wildlife filmmaker and first assistant to Włodzimierz Puchalski. When the conditions appeared, while working at the Higher School of Agriculture and Pedagogy in Siedlce, as an academic teacher, he intensively developed his photography workshop and the beginnings of a film workshop. During this period, he began work on his PhD thesis – after the opening of his doctoral thesis (April 31, 1985) at the Faculty of Philology of the University of Łódź, entitled Film Creativity of Włodzimierz Puchalski. Monograph. For important reasons (death of subsequent supervisors and reviewer, as well as involvement in new film projects), the dissertation defence and further academic career did not materialize. During the research for his dissertation, in 1985 he collaborated with the Educational Film Studio in Łódź, assisting in the shooting of two nature films. In the same year, he began working with Telewizja Polska, leading a series of spots entitled Photographic Animal Garden in a program for children and youth – Animal Garden.

In 1986, he made his first film for Polish Television at Poltel – the Central Factory of Television Programmes and Films, entitled Symbiosis? After 24 years of cooperation with Telewizja Polska – just after the end of almost ten years of production of the series Saga of the Ancient Forest – on July 1, 2009 – he founded his own small production company ŻUBROWA 10 JAN WALENCIK, in which he tries to implement almost exclusively his own creative projects.

Bożena and Jan Walencik made 75 nature films from 1986 to 2022, including almost 40 half-hour and hour-long productions. Among others, they are the authors of the first two Polish TV series on nature: Heartbeat of the Primeval Forest (five episodes, 1995) and Saga of the Ancient Forest (major and significant series of ten episodes – a new authors kind of story about wildlife: NATURE-FEATURE FILM, 2009), as well as the great feature film album Saga of the Ancient Forest. A Film Story (2016). They also collaborated with renowned producers from Great Britain and France – the creators of well-known and appreciated wildlife series and nature cinema films.

In 1995 they worked closely with Peter Jones, senior producer and publisher of the BBC’s regular long-running programme The Natural World and producer of the BBC’s flagship series with Sir David Attenborough – The Trials of Life, and later co-founder of Bristol-based production company Green Umbrella Ltd. From 1996 to 2001, Bożena and Jan Walencik and Krzysztof Komar made four films for this producer: two parts of the eight-part TV series Living Europe – Part II. Last pf the Wild Woods, Part III. Fresh Water, and the two-part TV series Nature’s Secrets (in the original Baltic secrets) – The Invincible Wolf and Return of the Beaver.

In 2012, they established cooperation with Jacques Perrin, the owner of the Paris-based Galatée Films company and producer of high-profile cinema nature films: Microcosmos, Winged Migration and Oceans. In 2013, for Galatée Films, the expanded team of ŻUBROWA 10 provided the Polish part of the production of the new nature film, Seasons (originally Les Saisons), directed by Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud. Eleven Directors of Photography – ten French and one Pole, Jan Walencik – were responsible for shaping the image in this production.

Jan Walencik is the single author of his 10 books and albums, as well as exhibitions of nature photography, the most successful of which was an exhibition of 100 large-format photographs, entitled Jan Walencik Film and Photography. Arbores vitae – Trees of Life. The last such primeval forest. It was organized by the European Earth Centre Foundation in six unusual locations, including: in a shopping mall in Białystok, at the foot of Krakow’s Wawel Castle, under the Pope’s window at the Franciscans in Krakow and in the corridors of the National Stadium during the Climate Summit.

They have been honored for their work with numerous awards in Poland and several other countries. Their most important trophies are: two Golden Magnolias, awarded at the 7th Shanghai Television Festival (1998) for the film The Last Primeval Forest, a double Grand Prix in Łódź – at the 8th National Review of Nature Films of the Włodzimierz Puchalski name (1998) and at the 14th International Nature Film Festival of the Włodzimierz Puchalski name (2011) – for the film Heartbeat of the Primeval Forest. Part II. Never-ending Rivalry and for the film Saga of the Ancient forest. Part V. The Tale of a Wood Beetle. The Power of a Dwarf, the Golden Eagle Award in Sondrio, Italy (1991) for the film The Land of Water, Sand and Wind, and the Professor Hugo Steinhaus Award (1997) for outstanding achievements in popularizing science on television, in particular for the film series Heartbeat of Primeval Forest.

They are both members of the Polish Filmmakers Association and the Association of Audiovisual Authors and Producers.

Bożena and Jan have been married since 1975. Their family pride is their son Maciej, daughter-in-law Izabela and two grandsons: Jasio and Kostek. They live in Białowieża village. They are friends of the Białowieża Primeval Forest – from the heart and by honorary title.