BAKA, MIROSŁAW

(1963-)

   Actor Mirosław Baka became internationally known for his role as a young drifter in Krzysztof Kieslowski's celebrated television film Decalogue 5 and its theatrical version, A Short Film about Killing (1988). This was Baka's third screen appearance and his first major role (he graduated from acting school in 1989). At the beginning of the 1990s, he played various roles in films directed by Jacek Skalski and Andrzej Barański (By the River Nowhere, 1991) and gained critical praise for his role as a postwar regional Communist Party secretary in Andrzej Wajda's The Ring with a Crowned Eagle (1992).Later he excelled in Wajda's television film Franciszek Kłos' Death Sentence (2000), playing another (after A Short Film about Killing) antihero—a Polish policeman during World War II who collaborates with the Germans and subsequently is sentenced to death by the underground. Baka maintained popularity in Poland playing "tough guys" in Władysław Pasikowski's films The War Demons According to Goya (1998) and Reich (2001), where he was paired with Bogusław Linda. For his role as a stockbroker in Amok (1998), directed by Natalia Koryncka-Gruz, he was nominated for the Polish Film Award "Eagle." Baka also acted in films made in Hungary, Denmark, and Germany: for example, in Emily Atefs film Molly's Way (2005). Since 1988 he has been associated with the Seashore Theater in Gdańsk (Teatr Wybrzeże).

   Historical Dictionary of Polish Cinema by Marek Haltof