“Life is very, very confusing, and so films should be allowed to be, too." David Lynch
Born in 1946 in Missoula, Montana, iconic film director David Lynch was raised in backwater America, hopping from state to state hanging onto the coat tails of his scientist father. On completing high school he attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, during which time he infamously kicked out his flatmate for being too weird – a supreme example of hypocrisy, surely. A planned three year sojourn in Europe was abandoned after 15 days, Lynch since declaring ‘I remember lying in an Athens basement with lizards crawling along the walls and contemplating that I was 7,000 miles from McDonald’s’. In 1977 he released his debut film ‘Eraserhead’, and though its success was limited it raised several of the right eyebrows; Francis Ford Coppola allegedly screened it to his cast on the set of Apocalypse Now, while George Lucas was so impressed he offered Lynch the chance to direct Return of the Jedi. In 1980 he followed up Eraserhead with the blockbusting tearjerker The Elephant Man, and though his next film, Dune, would prove a turkey, he recovered his reputation with Blue Velvet. In 1990 his sinister road movie Wild at Heart scooped the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, and he was to win more plaudits the same year with his cult TV series, Twin Peaks. Known for his abstract, dreamlike cinematography Lynch bagged more gongs with his 2001 hit Mulholland Drive, as well as an Oscar nomination for Best Director. That came a year after Lynch’s fascination with Łódź was born. Visiting Poland’s second city in 2000 for the Camerimage Festival the director was captivated by the town’s dark and gloomy side. He returned two years later, and it was this trip where the idea for Inland Empire took shape, ‘in a little bedroom painted green, where the first images were taken’. Since then Lynch has become a frequent visitor to the city, and in 2003 the director took a series of photographs of the city and its people which formed part of an exhibition later displayed in France. In 2006 he signed an agreement with the director of Camerimage, Marek Żydowicz, and the coowner of Grupa Atlas, Andrzej Wałczak, to call into being the Arts of the World Foundation. The foundation is to open an Arts of the World centre in Łódź, with the purpose being to build a space for creating art, as opposed to just showcasing it. Lynch also plans to have his own sound studio there. Fans of the man will find themselves in Lynch heaven by booking the Lynch Suite in the Centrum Hotel – the director’s sumptuous HQ for his local visits.