Polish cinematographer Witold Sobocinski died aged 89 on Monday, announced his alma mater, the Lodz Film School. In a career spanning over four decades, Sobocinski worked with renowned filmmakers including Andrzej Wajda, Krzystof Zanussi, Roman Polanski and Andrzej Zulawski. His notable credits include Zanussi’s Family Life (1971), Wajda’s Everything for Sale (1969) and The Wedding (1972), Zulawski’s The Third Part of the Night (1971), Polanski’s Pirates (1986) and Frantic (1988) and Wojciech Jerzy Has’s The Hourglass Sanatorium (1973).
Earlier this month, Sobocinski was given the Camerimage Lifetime Achievement Award. He had also been felicitated by from the American Society of Cinematographers and the Polish Filmmakers Association, among others, for his artistic contributions. His son, Piotr Sobocinski, also a cinematographer, died in 2001.
Since the 1980s, Sobocinski had been teaching at the Lodz Film School. He was also a drummer with the underground Polish jazz band Melomani. Founded in 1951, the band was active for seven years during a period when jazz music was banned in Stalinist Poland as it was considered synonymous with Western culture.
