UDP Internacional

Tuesday May 19th, 2026

On Friday, May 15, in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities auditorium, the General Directorate of International Relations, in conjunction with Globaliza UDP and the Embassy of Poland in Chile, hosted a screening of the movie Mensch, followed by a conversation with its director, polish filmmaker Paweł Wysoczański.

The event began with remarks from Anoek van den Berg, Director General of International Relations, who highlighted the director’s visit to the University: “We greatly appreciate your interest in coming as part of the International Month we are currently holding, and we thank the Embassy of Poland in Chile for providing this opportunity for our students.”

After that Mensch was screened. The feature film, released in 2024, portrays the life of Ludwik Hirszfeld (1884-1954), an outstanding physician from a Jewish family and the creator of the Polish school of immunology. Through various archives and reenactments, the film presents Hirszfeld as a mensch, which, according to the filmmaker, means “a human being of integrity, noble, and deeply committed to the world.”

Later, a conversation took place between the director and Journalism student Nicolás Merino, with translation by Victoria Sarian. The discussion covered the archival work, the reenactments, and the doctor’s life story.

Regarding how he became interested in Hirszfeld’s story, Wysoczański commented: “My nephew from Wrocław, who is a doctor, told me about Hirszfeld. So I started reading about him. And the more I read, the more I couldn’t believe I had never heard of him before,” he said.

“I was so surprised that such an exceptional personality had no film about him, no book about him, nothing. There is an autobiography by Ludwik Hirszfeld called The Story of a Life, and a biography of both Ludwik and Hanna, but there was no film. So the reason was that there were many films about Albert Einstein, or Marie Curie, who is a polish scientist, but nothing about Hirszfeld”, the director added.

To conclude the activity, the audience asked the filmmaker questions about the filming process, the choice of characters, and other aspects of the production.