Kuba Czekaj

Bio

Kuba Czekaj is an award-winning Polish director and screenwriter whose work has screened at Venice, Berlin, Cannes, and Sundance.

His debut feature BABY BUMP (2015) — developed through Biennale College Cinema — won the Special Queer Lion at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival and the Artistic Vision Award at Outfest Los Angeles. His follow-up, THE ERLPRINCE (2016), world-premiered at Slamdance, earned its European debut at the Berlinale, and took home the Young Jury Award at the Gdynia Film Festival.

At the 2017 Berlinale, Kuba received the Baumi Script Development Award for Sorry, Poland — a screenplay that went on to win the Krzysztof Kieślowski ScripTeast Award at Cannes for Best Script from Central and Eastern Europe. His third feature, LIPSTICK ON THE GLASS (2023), a Polish-German co-production with an international cast, opened theatrically across Germany in 2024.

On the series side, his Netflix drama INFAMIA (2023) swept the 2024 Warsaw SerialCon, winning Best Polish Series of the Year and Best Directing. He followed that with AN!ELA (2025), also for Netflix. Most recently, his political thriller VARIOLA VERA (2025) — inspired by the true story of a 1963 smallpox outbreak in communist Poland — became one of the most acclaimed Polish series of the year and was selected for the International Panorama competition at Series Mania 2026 in Lille.