Marian Opania to Receive the Marshal’s Film Award of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Region
One of Poland’s most distinguished actors, Marian Opania, will receive the Pola Negri Film Award of the Marshal of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Region on 5 September, the closing day of the Przeźrocza Film Festival in Bydgoszcz.
Opania will be honoured for his timeless performance in Andrzej Wajda’s Man of Iron (Człowiek z żelaza), the 1981 Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or winner. In the film, he portrays Winkel, a journalist broken by the communist regime and assigned to produce a report discrediting the leader of the August 1980 strike at the Gdańsk Shipyard. As the story unfolds, however, the reporter finds the courage to defy the authorities and stand alongside the striking workers.
“Nearly sixty years ago, Marian Opania appeared in Bydgoszcz as the young Scout Truchaczek in Aleksander Ścibor-Rylski’s Neighbours (Sąsiedzi),” the organisers of the Przeźrocza Film Festival recall. “The film recreated the events of the so-called ‘Bloody Sunday’ in Bydgoszcz in September 1939 and premiered in the city’s Pomorzanin cinema in September 1969. In the decades that followed, Marian Opania became one of Poland’s most recognisable and respected film and theatre actors.”
This year’s festival programme includes a screening of Man of Iron on Wednesday, 2 September, at Orzeł Cinema, followed by a meeting with the award recipient on Saturday, 5 September, at Młyny Rothera.
Born in Puławy in 1943, Marian Opania is one of the most versatile and distinctive figures in Polish performing arts. His career spans film, television, theatre, cabaret and musical performance. He graduated from the Acting Department of the State Higher School of Theatre in Warsaw in 1964 and made his stage debut that same year in the title role of Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II at Warsaw’s Classical Theatre.
Throughout his career, he has been associated with some of Warsaw’s leading theatres, including Studio Theatre, Kwadrat Theatre, Komedia Theatre and Ateneum Theatre, where he continues to perform.
Opania made his film debut while still a student in Andrzej Wajda’s anthology film Love at Twenty (Miłość dwudziestolatków, 1962). His breakthrough came in 1970 when he received the prestigious Zbigniew Cybulski Award, presented annually to Poland’s most promising young actor, for his performances in Kazimierz Kutz’s Leap (Skok) and Aleksander Ścibor-Rylski’s Neighbours.
Since then, he has appeared in dozens of feature films and television productions, ranging from powerful dramas to beloved comedies and satires, including Controlled Conversations (Rozmowy kontrolowane) and Football Poker (Piłkarski poker). Television audiences know him especially as Professor Zybert in the long-running TVP medical drama Na dobre i na złe.
Alongside his acting career, Opania has enjoyed great success as a cabaret performer. Since the late 1990s he has performed with actor Wiktor Zborowski as the duo Kabaret Super Duo. He is also an accomplished singer, performing songs by Bulat Okudzhava, Vladimir Vysotsky and Jacques Brel. In 2015 he released an album featuring songs by Leonard Cohen and Jaromír Nohavica.
His outstanding contribution to Polish culture has been recognised with numerous honours, including the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta and the Gold Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis. He is also an Honorary Citizen of Puławy.
The acting tradition continues in the Opania family, with both his son Bartosz Opania and grandson Filip Opania pursuing careers as actors.
Earlier this year, the Pola Negri Film Award of the Marshal of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Region was also presented to Zbigniew Suszyński, Magdalena Czerwińska and Łukasz Simlat.
Other recipients of the Marshal’s Film Award
Dariusz Czołgowski
Promotion Department
6 August 2026