Legendary Polish filmmaker as this year's SIFF jury president

Jury president Jerzy Skolimowski recounted his six decades of filmmaking, at his master class at the Shanghai International Film Festival on Wednesday.

The moderator introduced him, saying it's "very difficult to pinpoint who exactly you are," adding he had been great in so many things ― boxer, poet, painter, writer and actor, among others.

"After nearly failing at all those other attempts, film was like a last chance for me to establish myself as an artist," the 85-year-old filmmaker replied humbly.

"Fortunately I was lucky enough that film seemed to work for me."

That is an understatement, considering the Polish director, screenwriter, painter and actor has become a regular competitor and winner at film festivals around the world, since he was awarded the Golden Bear for "Le depart" in 1967.

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His latest directorial feature "EO," with a donkey as the protagonist, won the Jury Prize at last year's Cannes and was nominated for Best International Feature Film at the Oscars in March. He also received a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in 2016.

His started in filmmaking and has become sort of a legend ― the young writer Skolimowski dismissed a script of "Ashes and Diamonds" that Andrzej Wajda showed him. Wajda challenged him with a new script, and ended up using it.

"I thought scriptwriting seemed like an easy job, why shouldn't I try my hand at film?" he recalled.

He then passed fierce competition to enter the prestigious National Film School in Łódź, and decided he would always shoot the same little story for every exercise during his studies at film school, and edit all the episodes into a feature film about "a day in the life of a young man who decides to change his life."

He played the man in the film that was shot over four years.

The well-acclaimed filmmaker was also blatant when asked about his own movies: "Three or four were terrible, about four or five, maybe six, were pretty good, and the rest are mediocre," he said, and listed "30 Door Key" as the worst with no hesitation.

The 1991 film was so disappointing for the director that he "decided to stop making films," and went into painting for 17 years until he returned to direct "Four Nights with Anna" in 2008.

"I was able to return to filmmaking with a new approach, and I promised myself that from now on I will never make a bad film, and I managed to keep that promise," he said proudly.

"All the movies I have made since then, none of them are really bad. And I specially recommend 'EO,' the best film I have ever made."

He added, 'When making it, I felt like a young filmmaker who is developing and stepping higher and higher."