Paul Kowalski

Paul Kowalski is a filmmaker and educator committed to applying his award-winning writing and directing into his teaching practice. For the last decade he has been a professor at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, teaching undergraduate and graduate filmmaking. He leads a screenwriting retreat with Nostos in Tuscany every summer, and runs a weekly development workshop which has included Oscar- and Emmy-winners, and winners of major grants, representation and scriptwriting contests.

In 2021 Paul was named one of “25 Screenwriters to Watch” by Austin Film Festival, and invited to the Shore Scripts' Directors Roster. His screenplay THE HOUSEMASTER was selected by The Dead List among 2024's top horror scripts in Hollywood. Kowalski received an Honors magna cum laude BA from Brown University, studying filmmaking and publishing a collection of short stories — then went on to get his MFA in directing from AFI on scholarship.

His own films tend to center around identity, exile and obsession, often featuring dark psychologies and the supernatural. In 2024 he won the Best Director Grand Prize at the Oscar- and BAFTA-qualifying Flickers Rhode Island film festival for his film SARDINIA, about a serious man trying to avoid a laughing plague. Produced by Kowalski's production company PKINO Films, the film was Executive Produced by Patton Oswalt, who called it "an effortlessly original piece of work" and "beyond timely"; it stars Philip Ettinger (FIRST REFORMED) and Emmy-winner Martha Plimpton (THE REGIME, THE GOONIES), and was recently long-listed for the 2025 Academy Awards.

Paul's feature PAPER TIGER won the Audience Award and a Jury Prize at Austin Film Festival, was sold by Gersh in 2021, and had a special screening at the Canadian Cinematheque. His other films have won international recognition from the ASC, Beijing Film Academy and CINE, as well as the Aesthetica, Raindance, deadCenter, Cinequest and Indy Shorts film festivals, among others.

Kowalski is a Polish, British and US citizen. Based in LA, Paul grew up in England, the Middle East, Poland, Africa, Southeast Asia and across America – sparking a natural impulse to reconcile contrasting views of the world — and feels particularly at home with international and diverse students.