Fine Cuts: The Art of European Film Editing

17  Michal Leszczylowski

I talked with Michal over a leisurely lunch at an old established restaurant, Ulriksdals Vardhus, which is set in a royal estate overlooking an inlet on the outskirts of Stockholm. I was eager to learn how this man from Poland had ended up in Sweden cutting Tarkovsky’s last film, ‘The Sacrifice’. Since then he has become the editor of choice for the new Swedish generation that includes Lukas Moodysson.

I was born in Poland in 1950, on a Sunday afternoon. ‘Lazy guy’, they said he is going to be, which I still try to prove to be false. My parents were both chemists and of course they wanted me to be a pharmacist too, which I did not want.

One of the main things which formed me professionally almost from the time I was born ...