All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.
Walt Disney
Arek Zasowski with the director Kevin Luther Apaa and an actress Julia Johnsson filming short romantic comedy
April Fools Day at the Universal Studios Hollywood, August, 2016. Photo: Sha Peng
Arek Zasowski with director Bruce MacWilliams at the New York Film Academy in Los Angeles. October 2018. Photo: Viola Zasowska
Arek Zasowski at the workshop with acting coach and actress Valerie Dent. Valerie Dent is Arek Zasowski’s very first acting coach who introduced Zasowski to the world of acting. London 2017.
I still remember that great sense of excitement when, on that beautiful warm sunny August Saturday afternoon in Southern California, I was impatiently waiting at the New York Film Academy’s pleasantly cool air-conditioned movie theatre in Burbank, CA, for a screening of two student short films in which I starred in for a very first time in my, at the time, very short acting career: April Fools Day, directed by talented director Kevin Luther Apaa, and You Can Heal Your Life, directed by Sha Peng.
The two short films that formed a part of the New York Film Academy’s week-long hands-on Acting for Film workshop, were filmed earlier that week at the nearby Universal Studios Hollywood backlot.
I remember, I could not wait for the lights to go down and see my debut on a big screen at the film academy.
April Fools Day was a very first short romantic
My debut on a big screen
comedy, a silent prank film, that I have ever starred in, where I had great pleasure to portray Calvin, a leading and rather funny character with a peculiar sense of humour when it comes to proposing to his girlfriend.
In You Can Heal Your Life a dramatic short student film, written and directed by Sha Peng, which depicts a story of two people trying to run away from their painful childhood memories, I portrayed a role of Ben, a talent agent in the music industry.
Looking back, I recognise that although both student films were rather short in nature, filmed with a minimum preparation and character development, they represented an important first step in my film acting career, taught me plenty of valuable lessons and provided me with a first class on-set experience, a foundation on which I continued to build on my creative acting career in the years to come.
Red carpet film awards ceremony at the Silver State Film Festival held at the Century Orleans 18 & XD Movie Theatre at Orleans Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, NV. September 2019. Photo: Steve Escarcega
Arek Zasowski introducing his mysterious romantic comedy Call Me at the screening of the film at the Golden State Film Festival held at the iconic world-renowned TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. March 2020. Photo: Steve Escercega
There is a lot that I could say about my diverse career, years of my personal and professional development primarily within financial services and banking in particular, designing and writing countless risk reports for senior executives, data visualisation and analysis, supporting various compliance frameworks and projects, however, I will try to focus here on my creative side, i.e. the part that brings a lot of joy and fulfilment to my artistic life – acting, directing and in general, filmmaking.
Ever since I took my first acting class, in the heart of the City of London at the Bishopsgate Institute, opposite the Liverpool Street Station, I have seen myself primarily as an international film actor who has great appetite to work on an American and international movie projects filmed on film sets in beautiful locations around the world which would combine two of my greatest passions in life – acting/filmmaking and travelling.
Over the past few years, I have built a solid international acting training foundations at various acting classes, courses and workshops as well as an independent film sets in Europe and the USA including: London, Los Angeles at the new York Film Academy and the Universal Studios Hollywood, New York City, Florence in Italy, and other locations around European Union such as Poland, Spain and the beautiful island of Cyprus.
In 2020, I was awarded Short Film Best Actor Silver Award by Los Angeles Motion Picture Festival for portraying a lead character in Sha Peng’s drama Chinese Angel and by the Mindfield Film Festival - Albuquerque for portraying a role of Henk in the romantic drama Let Go: Letting Go.
I also won Best International Romantic Comedy Short award at the Golden State Film Festival held at the iconic TCL Chinese Theatres in Hollywood.
A brief summary
Our dreams do not often come in front screaming at us, this is what you should do or this is who you should become, but often come from behind gently whispering in your ear.
Steven Spielberg
When I look back, I think that my love for acting was somewhat subconsciously sparked in Gliwice, a mid-sized city in Poland where I grew up.
At the time when I was around five years old my Mom signed me up to take a part in a play for Christmas at the kindergarten I used to go to as a kid… I know, I know, we have all heard that kind of stories before so I will cut it here.
However, what I would say is that ever since, my love for watching movies, cinema and acting surrounded me but I only somehow managed to recognise it and decided to pursuit acting and filmmaking many years later, in my mid-thirties.
It was in January 2016, when for the first time I decided to join in an acting and drama course held at the Bishopsgate Institute in the heart of City of London,
This is how it all started
conveniently located opposite the Liverpool Train Station near one of the modern tall glassy office buildings I used to work at on Bishopsgate.
The three-months long acting course was run by Valerie Dent, my very first acting coach who introduced me to the art of acting and slowly, over the next coming few years, helped me to shape and develop the foundations of my acting craft.
It was also that year when, for the first time, I took a part in an adaptation of a country house murder mystery play "The Real Inspector Hound", directed by Valerie Dent, where I recorded my voice for a role of Radio News Announcer. The radio announcements were played during the play, my very first official voice-over.
Arek Zasowski is the Telly Award winning, Polish-born, international film actor, talk-show host, visual special effects artist, film director, independent film and talk-show producer. Some of Zasowski’s past film credits include: Detective Jack Berdett, Incoming Impact, Call Me, Let Go: Letting Go, Chinese Angel and the award winning late night talk-show Actors by Actors Show.
Arek Zasowski’s work was aired on cable TV in Victoria, Canada, streamed on ShortsDaily Roku TV channel and screened on big screen to live audiences at the iconic world-renowned TCL Chinese Theatres in Hollywood at the Golden State Film Festival, as well as at various film festivals in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, USA, Canada, Europe and Africa.
Since 2016, which marks the beginning of Arek Zasowski’s creative career, Zasowski won over 134 film awards, nominations and official selections at film festivals including: Best Actor, Best Director, Best TV Pilot, and Best Audience Award and Bronze Telly Award.
The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.
Walt Disney
So I had to start somewhere and what is a better way to expand my acting and develop my craft further, outside the acting training and acting classes that is, than by actually doing it, creating my own work, and not passively waiting for anything to happen.
That is how, unintentionally, and to my somewhat great surprise, I have fallen in love with the art of filmmaking, and in fact, with all of its creative elements including: writing a screenplay, directing, managing the whole creative project, producing, and also very recently composting the footage, animating, designing 3D scenes and creating visual special effects. I applied some of the elements in few of my sci-fi film projects including Detective Jack Berdett, Incoming Impact and Actors by Actors Show - Episode #004 which were achieved by adopting a combination of creative tools and visual techniques including: Adobe After Effects, Video Copilot’s Element 3D and Epic Games’ Unreal Engine.
I quickly learned that I really enjoyed having the power and being able to control and shape the entire creative project and its process, from an initial inception of an idea, writing a script, story boarding it, casting talent, directing, editing, vfx, all the way to the film release and its subsequent promotion and film festival run.
I discovered that I could cast myself and in the same time I could also help other starting out actors to gain the on-screen exposure, whilst we all had a lot of fun together on the film set.
So I started producing my own short films, with a clear purpose in mind, I am doing it to learn the filmmaking process, grow as an artist and support my acting career which was always on my ultimate goal.
In March 2017, I produced my first ever, as I learned later on, an award winning short romantic drama Let Go: The Prelude where I portrayed an archaeologist Henk who refused to accept that his beloved fiancée died in a tragic accident. In 2020, the story was developed further in a sequel Let Go: Letting Go which won a number of film festival awards, nominations and official selections at film festivals in the US, Europe and Australia.
Over the past few years, I also worked on a number of films including a REMI award winning drama Chinese Angel, directed by Sha Peng which was aired on cable TV in Victoria, Canada in February 2018; as well as other sci-fi films including Detective Jack Berdett, Incoming Impact and mysterious romantic comedy Call Me just to name a few.
Let Go: Letting Go – The Official Movie Poster, May 2020
My work
Production Still – Natasha Jules as Vivian and Arek Zasowski as Henk in an award winning romantic drama Let Go: Letting Go, London, November 2019.
Each step you take reveals a new horizon.
Dan Poynter
In May 2020, Let Go: Letting Go won Award of Merit in Best Drama category at the Vegas Movie Awards in Las Vegas, NV.
Production Still – Arek Zasowski as doctor Vince Williams in an award winning mysterious romantic comedy Call Me.
Start wide, expand further, and never look back.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Production still – Arek Zasowski and Tilifayea Griffin in dramatic Blurry Hope, directed by Alexandru Palada, at the Universal Studios Hollywood.
Arek Zasowski wins Best International Romantic Comedy Short with Call Me at the Golden State Film Festival, TCL Chinese Theatre, Hollywood. March 2020. In photo (from left) with Jon Grusha, the film festival director, an actress Aemy NiaFeliz and Peter Greene, the festival Programmer. Photo: Steve Escarcega
Film festivals and movie awards
It turned out to be that there was an audience who liked to see my creative work with me in it on a big screen.
It did not take long before my films started to generate interest from film festivals in Los Angeles and Las Vegas that were happy to screen them with live audience at prestigious annual film events and on ShortsDaily Roku TV channel.
As time passed, my work somewhat started to establish its own place within an independent filmmaking community space and began to become recognised by film festivals goers and awarded by independent film industry professionals.
I remember, there was a number of fantastic film festivals that I had an immense pleasure to attend, especially in Los Angeles and in Las Vegas. In March 2020, one of a truly unforgettable special events was the Golden State Film Festival where my romantic comedy Call Me in which I portrayed the lead character doctor Vince Williams, was screened on a big screen at the iconic world-renowned TCL Chinese Theatres at the very heart of Hollywood right on Hollywood Boulevard where it won Best International Romantic Comedy Short award.
Since 2018, Call Me won multiple film awards including: Best Mystery Short at the 2019 Marina Del Rey Film Festival in Los Angeles, and Best Romance Short at the 2019 Silicon Beach Film Festival in Culver City.
In April 2018, Chinese Angel won Silver REMI Award in Dramatic Original category at the 51st Annual WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival i.e. the oldest Indie Film Festival in the world. Later that year, it also won Best Canadian Drama at the Alternative Film Festival in Toronto, Canada.
First recognition of my acting came in 2018, as I was honoured with Best Actor – Bronze Award at the Pinnacle Film Awards, in Los Angeles, for the role of Henk that I portrayed in romantic drama Let Go: The Prelude.
The success at film festivals gave me some sort of validation that I am on the right track moving in the right direction, and that slowly, step by step, each and everyday I am getting closer and closer to achieving my dream goal of becoming an international movie star.
Written by Arek Zasowski
Last updated: July 12, 2023
Talk Show
On the first pilot episode of the show I had an immense pleasure to interview an award winning talented actress Lizet Benrey in which Lizet shared her creative career. I was thrilled to learn that the pilot episode won an Audience Award as Best Webisode or Pilot at the 2021 annual Golden State Film Festival in Los Angeles, and I was awarded Best Director - Webisode or Pilot Award at the 2021 Marina del Rey Film Festival in Los Angeles.
In May 2023, the fourth episode of the show in which I interviewed Suzanne Von Schaack, talented actress, model, filmmaker and best selling author was awarded Bronze Telly Award in Television - Entertainment category at the 44th Annual Telly Awards in New York City.
In 2020, rather unexpectedly the Covid 19 pandemic came. With the widespread national and international lockdowns, you simply and literally could not go anywhere, with a lot of time on my hands, I started to wonder how can I use all these adverse circumstances and all this time constructively, hone my craft, grow as an artist, learn from others and in the same time also help other actors and artists grow, tell their story, bring it to the wider audience and inspire others and also perhaps win few film festival awards as we go along.
This is how the Actors by Actors Show idea came to life. Ok, I will design a virtual soundstage, invite other artists to tell their stories and interview them on the show with the clear goal in mind to inspire other actors, perhaps just starting out actors, who would like to learn from other artists’ experiences.
Arek Zasowski holding the Bronze Telly Award statuette after winning the 44th Telly Awards in Television - Entertainment category in New York, May 2023, with the Actors By Actors Show - Episode #004
Biography
Arek Zasowski at the Acting For Film workshop. Screening ceremony at the New York Film Academy in Los Angeles. October 2018. Photo: Viola Zasowska
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