Rafal Zielinski (born 1957, Montreal) is an independent filmmaker He is best known for directing films such as 'Fun' (Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Award), 'Ginger Ale Afternoon', 'Hey Babe!', Hangman's Curse, Downtown: A Street Tale, National Lampoon's Last Resort and the "King of the B Movies" Roger Corman produced Screwballs and its several sequels. He studied under filmmaker Richard Leacock, one of the pioneers of Direct Cinema and Cinéma Vérité at MIT, where he graduated with a B.S. in Art and Design. On several of his independent films he is credited both as a director, producer and writer and on occasion as "Rafael Zelinsky" and/or "Rafal Haimovitz".His early years were spent in Eastern Europe. Born of a Polish father, an engineer and a pioneer in pre-fabricated housing, and mother of Jewish roots, an architect, his childhood was spend in several countries where his father worked for the Ford Foundation. While in grade-school he travelled several times around the world and gained a global perspective, an 8mm camera always at his eye. He was schooled in North America, the Middle East and the Orient.During high-school he attended Stowe School in England where he received the Duke of Edinburgh Award enabling him to make his first documentary film about the temples in Southern India.He went on to graduate from MIT with a Bachelor of Science in Art and Design focusing on the new field of art and technology (participated in projects at the Media Lab), and studied cinéma-vérité documentary film-making with Richard Leacock.After graduating from MIT he went on to direct several award winning documentaries, gradually moving towards drama and becoming more and more interested in story-telling.As an independent filmmaker Rafal has always generated his own projects either by creating an original story that he was passionate about then collaborating with several screenwriters or adapting works from the theater in collaboration with the respective playwright. On most of the independent films that he directed he also served as his own producer often producing through his own company.His first feature "Hey Babe” opened the Taormina Film Festival, and showed at Toronto, Montreal and AFI Film Festival..“Fun” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival where it received two Special Jury Awards for Acting Achievement and went on to show at the Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver as well as other international film festivals including Sydney, Edinbrough, Munich, Vienna, London, Cambridge, Stockholm, São Paulo, Hawaii, Hamburg, Rimini, Mill Valley, San Jose, Warsaw, Oslo and Wales. The Film opened theatrically at the Film Forum in New York and received two nominations for Best Newcomer Performance and Best First Screenplay for IFP Spirit Awards.“Ginger Ale Afternoon” also premiered in competition at the Sundance Film Festival and was picked up by Skouras Pictures for domestic theatrical release in the United States.“Downtown: a street tale”, filmed in
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