"Short circuit" by Ivan Vyrypaev and Karolina Grushka: How a Polish film star met her fate in Russia

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Polish actresses, thanks to their refined beauty and special charm, often became in demand in domestic cinema. The names of Beata Tyshkevich, Eva Shikulskaya, Barbara Brylskaya were well known to Soviet audiences. And among modern actresses, Karolina Grushka has become the most popular both in her homeland and in Russia. When she played Pushkin's Captain's Daughter in the film "Russian Riot", she could not even imagine that her romance with Russia would go off the set and change her life forever …

Karolina Grushka was born in 1980 in Warsaw and has dreamed of becoming an actress since childhood. She began acting in films at the age of 4, and after school she graduated from the Theater Academy. Zelverovich in Warsaw. Already in the 1st year she received an offer to play the main role in the film of the Russian director Alexander Proshkin "Russian revolt" based on Pushkin's "The Captain's Daughter". Then she still did not speak Russian very well, and her heroine Masha Mironova was voiced by Chulpan Khamatova.

Her Russian cinematic debut was so successful that she soon received the next offer - the role of Julia in the war drama "In August 1944". After that, both Polish and Russian directors Grushka became a very popular actress. And in 2006 she began acting in the West - she was offered a role in the film "Inland Empire" by the master of world cinema, David Lynch.

In Russia, Karolina Grushka became widely known after starring in the film "Oxygen" directed by Ivan Vyrypaev. At that time, he already earned world recognition after his film Euphoria won the Grand Prix at the International Film Festival in Warsaw, the Little Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, the Nika Prize and the special prize of the Russian festival Kinotavr. His next victory was Oxygen, based on his play of the same name. For this work, Vyrypaev was awarded the Kinotavr Prize in the Best Director nomination.

For filming in this film, the actress had to work with a teacher of the Russian language - the director flatly refused to dub. But the efforts were not in vain. The love story played by Karolina Grushka in Oxygen has gone off-set. Since then, she has become a muse and a real mascot for Ivan Vyrypaev, who also filmed the Polish actress in his other films. One of them was the short story "Feel" in the film "Short Circuit", where 5 directors filmed 5 short stories about love. Vyrypaev's work was of particular importance both for him and for the actress - it was a story about the meeting of a Russian youth and a Polish tourist girl who did not understand his language, whom he invites not to think about the world around him, but to feel it.

They met before filming "Oxygen", at the Kiev festival "Youth", where Vyrypaev presented "Euphoria", and Grushka - the film "Lovers from Marona". At first they fell in love with each other's work, the director said that it was a "relationship between artists", and on the set of "Oxygen" romantic feelings also appeared. After completing work on the film, Vyrypaev proposed to her, and in the same year they got married. For Carolina, this was the first marriage, and for the Russian director - already the third. In 2012, the couple had a daughter.

In recent years, the spouses spend most of their time in Poland, where Ivan Vyrypaev has become a very popular theater director. His productions are successfully staged in Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, France, England and Canada. However, he has no plans to cut ties with Russia. In 2013-2016. he was the artistic director of the Praktika Theater in Moscow. Vyrypaev says: "". His wife calls herself a Polish-Russian actress and continues to act in films both in her homeland and in Russia.

The spouses have been living together for more than 10 years and during this time they have learned to understand each other well, although Vyrypaev still feels the difference in mentality with the Poles: “”.

Their tandem, both in personal and creative life, turned out to be so harmonious and strong that they are often asked in interviews about what became the bond of their union, and whether the working relationship is reflected in their family life. Carolina answers this: "". The couple opened their own production company in Warsaw, which works with the best Polish actors, and this initiative was also successful.

Karolina Grushka is called the embodiment of femininity on the screens, just like her predecessors - Polish actresses who starred in Russian cinema and were fascinated by domestic actors and directors: The romantic mystery of the "Stars of Captivating Happiness".