DIRECTOR’S BIO

Olga Chajdas studied film production at the Lodz Film School and directing at the Academy of Film and Television in Warsaw. While she was a student, she worked on the sets of numerous films and series in the production department. She also worked with Warsaw's Na Woli Theatre, where she prepared a play titled “The Last Jew in Europe”, based on a drama by Tuvia Tenenbom; an important play about Antisemitism, the hypocrisy of contemporary society, the need for tolerance and respect for otherness.
She worked as an assistant on the “Prime Minister” series by Agnieszka Holland, Magdalena Lazarkiewicz and Kasia Adamik, which was an important professional experience for her.
She continued to work with A. Holland on her subsequent films, incl. the Oscar-nominated “In Darkness” and “Mr. Jones”. Chajdas has directed many TV productions and series incl. “The Deep End” and “The Border” for HBO, “Cracow Monsters” and “1983” for Netflix, and co-directed the first Polish feature film for Netflix “Erotica 2022”.
When it comes to films, she started with short films about women at a turning point in their lives, such as “3x LOVE” and “Morning has Broken'’.
In 2018, Chajdas made her feature debut “Nina”.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
Imago is a Latin term signifying the ideal form that an insect achieves in its life. While searching for the title, I kept thinking about what this film means to me: looking for one's 'ideal' form, this search for oneself and the process of transformation. In “Imago”, this process of transformation of a woman is what matters most to me. A young girl, an artist, becomes pregnant in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I wanted the viewers to be kept on their toes as to where the story was really going. Ela's actions are sometimes illogical, chaotic, emotional. Her process of searching for herself is crucial here.