Nina Niovilla's grave in Paris' Batignolles cemetery as a trace of Polish film heritage

Women's cinema was not a fashion. It was a revolution

Did women's cinema begin in the 1980s? Was it only Agnès Varda, Chantal Akerman or Jane Campion who gave it direction? Perhaps. But even before there were manifestos and strategies , before the concept of the 'female gaze' was coined, female directors from the turn of the 20th century were already blazing trails and laying the foundations of a new cinematic language .

Among them was Alice Guy-Blaché (1873-1968), a pioneer of French cinema, considered the first female director of a feature film in history. As early as 1896, she created the picture 'La Fée aux Choux' ('The Cabbage Fairy') and later headed the Gaumont studio before setting up her own film studio in the USA. Parallel to this in the US was Lois Weber (1879-1939), author of socially engaged dramas such as 'Hypocrites' (1915) and 'The Blot' (1921), in which she tackled themes of morality, poverty and social inequality - using innovative means of cinematic expression.

In Russia, documentary filmmaking was co-created by Esfir Shub (1894-1959), author of The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty ('Падение династии Романовых', 1927), whose rhythmic editing inspired the very masters of the Soviet avant-garde. In France, on the other hand, Germaine Dulac (1882-1942), a cinema theorist and director, gave expression to a surrealist vision of female consciousness in 'La Coquille et le Clergyman' (1928), combining symbolism with formal experimentation.

In Germany, Leontine Sagan (1889-1974) became famous with her moving film 'Girls in Uniform' ('Mädchen in Uniform', 1931), which was not only aesthetically groundbreaking but also morally daring - showing feelings between women in the stuffy space of a conservative boarding school.

This all happened decades before the days when women's cinema was talked about. Their work was sometimes flattering to a more general audience, but it was also often personal, independent and far from the mainstream - it remained on the margins, but it was there that new ways of looking were shaped . Women's cinema was not a temporary trend . It was a revolution, the traces of which we are only now seeing clearly - digging up names, restoring memories and seeing them as authors of a language that was to sound different.

Who was the first woman behind the camera in Poland?

In one of the lesser-known Paris cemeteries lies a pioneer of Polish cinema . A woman who directed her first film even before Poland regained its independence. And then - she wrote scripts, ran a film school, opened other branches, trained future stars... until she disappeared from history.

Antonina Elżbieta Petrykiewiczówna, later known under the pseudonym Nina N iovilla , was born on 27 January 1874 in Lviv as the daughter of Antoni Petrykiewicz, a clerk at the Galician Credit Bank, and Apolonia née Nyczaj. Her biography was carefully reconstructed by Marek Teler in his article "Nina Niovilla: the forgotten mother of Polish cinematography?", from whose article most of the biographical information in this text was taken. She received a thorough education at the Teaching Institute of the Nuns of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Lviv. From an early age she manifested outstanding musical abilities , so after completing her primary education she left for Italy to continue her singing studies . From 1894, she trained her voice in Milan , with well-known pedagogues such as singer Francesco Mottino and composer Cesare Rossi . It was then that she adopted the artistic pseudonym "Nina Niovilla " , which she used for the rest of her life. She made her debut on the Italian opera stage in 1896 in the role of Oscar's pazo in Giuseppe Verdi's 'Masked Ball', performing at the theatre in Abbiategrasso.

She returned in 1903 . At the beginning of the 20th century, she performed at the Lviv City Theatre and at the Lviv operetta . At the same time she began translating plays from Italian, French and English - both classics and contemporary works. In 1905, she published her own play, "O świcie" ("At Dawn"). "O świcie " , based on the legend of Popiel and Kruszwica. Two years later, on 25 October 1906, she gave birth to a daughter, Ludwika Janina. She became a single mother, which in the reality of the time exposed her to social condemnation. Keeping up appearances, she implied that her daughter was the fruit of a formal marriage, which was even reflected in later documents.

In the following years she moved to Warsaw and continued to translate stage plays. Around 1910, she began regular artistic and educational trips to Berlin and Vienna , where, as she recalled in a later interview, she was apprenticed as a film director. It was there, influenced by the new art of the moving image, that she began to take an interest in cinema as a form of artistic expression.

During the First World War, she supported herself mainly by acting and singing, performing in Warsaw and Berlin. It was in Berlin, in 1918, under the pseudonym Nina von Petry, that she made her first film "Die Heiratsannonce" ("Matrimonial Announcements "), which is today regarded as the director's first step into feature cinema.

Between 1919 and 1923, Nina Niovilla experienced the most intense and creative period of her artistic career, becoming one of the most active women in Polish cinematography . Just one year after Poland regained its independence, she returned from Berlin to Warsaw with a concrete vision: to create a cinema that would be a vehicle for a new national identity and at the same time a tool for civic and artistic education .

In 1919, she founded the Warsaw School of Stage-Film Acting, the first institution in Poland to train actors not only for the theatre but, above all, for the new medium - cinema . The school taught diction, plasticity of movement, make-up and, above all, film acting, which, as Niovilla emphasised, differed from theatrical acting in the scale of emotions, intensity of gaze and discipline of the body in front of the camera. Her method was based on psychological authenticity and conscious handling of facial expressions, which made her one of the forerunners of a realistic style of screen acting in Poland.

The school started to develop very quickly - branches were opened in Vilnius, Łódź, Lviv and Poznań . It was taught by practitioners and theoreticians, and among its students were later well-known actors: Aleksander Żabczyński , who became an icon of pre-war cinema, and Alexandra Sorina , later a star of German and French silent cinema. Niovilla managed the school with full commitment, not only organising the curriculum, but personally teaching classes , supervising the production of rehearsal films and performances.

Alongside her teaching activities , she directed feature films whose scripts she wrote herself , basing them on patriotic themes or literary texts. Her directorial debut on Polish soil was 'Tamara' (1919), also known as ' Defenders of Lviv ' - a patriotic drama depicting the battles for the city during the Polish-Ukrainian war . Niovilla made it with a clear documentary and educational intention, commemorating the events of November 1918, making her one of the first makers of politically engaged film in Poland.

Her next film, Chaty (1920), was an adaptation of a ballad by Adam Mickiewicz . It is an intimate drama set in a mountain hut, operating with a mood of horror and moral tension. Here, Niovilla showed a keen sense of rhythm and atmosphere, while at the same time attempting to transpose Romantic poetry into the language of the moving image - an innovative gesture for a time when schematic melodramas still prevailed.

In 1921, the third film was made - Idziem do ciebie, Polsko, matko nasza (Going to You, Poland, Our Mother) - a historical-symbolic drama devoted to the national uprisings and the sacrifice made for the freedom of the fatherland. The film combined elements of chronicle, allegory and pathos - although it may seem archaic today, at the time it was perceived as a manifesto of the generation that fought for independence.

The pinnacle of her filmmaking activity was the 1923 picture Youth Wins - a m elodrama about youthful love, social obstacles and strength of character . This film was made at the Nina Niovilla-Film studio, which the director founded and which was located on Mazowiecka Street in Warsaw. It was her most mature project: she was responsible for the script, direction, production supervision and cast selection. Reviewers praised the film for "a beautiful script, great direction, a finished play", and although one critic joked that "there is a bit too much kissing in the film", there was no doubt that behind the camera was a conscious, skilful and independent auteur.

This intense period of her career, however, was abruptly interrupted - and not for artistic reasons, but by the dramatic events of a hoax that would soon cast a shadow over the rest of Niovilla's life....

'Youth prevails', but the cinema is silent

Nina Niovilla was an extraordinary figure. She was the first woman in Poland to stand behind the camera and she did so at a time when women did not even have full voting rights yet . Her cinema - as Agata Frymus notes - was distinguished by its 'conscious method' and psychological narrative, and reviewers praised her 'methodicalness' and 'knowledge of the craft ' . She created in a spirit of independence, combining a patriotic message with personal sensitivity.

However, Niovilla's career was abruptly interrupted. In the early 1920s, she entered into a partnership with Jan Czeslaw Sikorowicz , a shrewd but dishonest impresario and false patron. Under the guise of developing a branch of a film school in Krakow, he set up his own school . He resorted to issuing promissory notes, forging signatures and collecting fees from students who never received certificates or access to classes. Soon there were lawsuits, newspaper articles, warnings in the 'Kurier Warszawski' and the 'Express Poranny' - Niovilla was dragged into a financial scandal of which she was not the perpetrator, but which damaged her reputation .

Although she tried to fight for her good name - including by publishing corrigenda and explanations in the press - the damage was irreparable . Schools were closed, pupils dropped out and she was seen as a controversial figure . Throughout the 1930s, she already lived in the shadow of her former fame - she supported herself with casual jobs as a proofreader, translator and private diction teacher. She did not direct, did not write scripts, and her name appeared less and less in the public space.

The war found her in Warsaw. In 1940, she was evicted from her flat on Filtrowa Street . She moved to an apartment occupied by the Germans at 32 Rozbrat Street, where she was employed as a maid. The woman who, a dozen or so years ago, had taught the film elite, now cleaned and cooked for the occupants.

After the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising, she was taken to a transit camp in Pruszków , and from there - probably to one of the German labour camps. Her wartime fate is not precisely documented, but it is known from her family's later accounts that she returned to Warsaw in 1945 in very poor health and mental condition.

It was only in 1946, thanks to the intervention and care of her daughter Ludwika and son-in-law Zygmunt Karaffa, that she managed to leave for France. She settled in Paris , in rue Blanche, in a modest flat. She lived in isolation and took no part in artistic or émigré life.

She died on 4 February 1966, forgotten by the film community with which she had once been so closely associated. Her grave in Batignolles cemetery was not visited or mentioned in any guidebooks for years.

Polish artist buried under a Parisian sky

Batignolles Cemetery in Paris, at 22, rue Saint-Just, is the resting place of many artists, but only one grave is associated with Polish film heritage. In the grave numbered 26 in plot 30 rests Nina Niovilla (d. 1966), her daughter Ludwika Petrykiewiczówna (d. 1993) and her son-in-law Zygmunt Karaffa (d. 1964), a Polish Army officer and radio engineering specialist.

The gravestone is made of light grey granite, in the form of an earthen grave enclosed by a band and a Maltese cross, set on a quadrilateral plinth. The cross is crowned with a relief depiction of three military decorations: on the left: the Cross of Valour (Poland), in the centre: the Croix de Guerre with two stars (France), on the right: the Médaille commémorative de la guerre 1939-1945 with the Lorraine Cross (France).

On the vertical arm of the cross is engraved the inscription commemorating Sigmund Karaffa:

LE COL. ING. ZYGMUNT KARAFFA / DE L'ARMÉE POLONAISE / VARSOVIE 15 AVRIL 1894 / PARIS 25 AVRIL 1964

(Translation: Col. Ing. Zygmunt Karaffa, of the Polish Army, Warsaw 15 April 1894 - Paris 25 April 1964)

On the pedestal, below the cross, is a separate inscription dedicated to Antonina Petrykiewicz, who is buried in the same grave:

ANTOINETTE PETRYKIEWICZ / DITE NINA NIOVILLA / LVOV 1874 - PARIS 1966

(Translation: Antonina Petrykiewicz, called Nina Niovilla, Lviv 1874 - Paris 1966)

The tombstone is simple, without elaborate carving or elaborate inscription - in a spirit of modesty that does not harmonise with the enormity of the achievements of its first occupant. Today, the bronze plaque with the names of three people is one of the few traces of the existence of a director whose no film has survived.