The statuette will honour his Lifetime Achievements. Previous recipients include Andrzej Wajda and Roman Polanski, both of whom Skolimowski worked with early in his career.

Skolimowski attended high school in Prague, where his mother was a diplomatic attaché and where he first met Milos Forman and Vaclav Havel, before returning to Lodz to study directing. He left Poland in 1969, when he was exiled following the censorship of his 1967 film Hands Up! He settled first in England and then In the US, before returning to Poland and filmmaking. His films won awards at the Gdynia festival in 1981, 2008, 2011 and 2015.