Born in the old port of Hamburg in 1965 Thomas Krygier traveled and lived in various parts of Europe and the east during which time he developed an eye for observation. He started life as a self-taught stills photographer, working for style magazines including GQ, Interview and The Face.

A chance meeting with Hollywood director, Rusty Lemorand got Krygier his first break assisting with the former’s adaptation of the Henry James classic, “Turn of The Screw”.

In 1988, Krygier directed his first film “The First Day of Summer” which portrays one day in the life of a group of Parisians and is set around 1930. Having seen this film, acclaimed director, Tony Kaye hired Thomas on the spot.

In 1994, Krygier left Kaye Films after 2 years to join Arden Sutherland-Dodd where he directed commercials for Harrods and won awards for his treatment of Swisscom and Saatchi & Saatchi’s The Army. He was also the talent behind Y&R’s controversial Eurostar campaign.

After 5 years he decided to set up shop with producer Nick Hirschkorn and shot promos, commercials and films for his own company, Krygier Hirschkorn. He has directed films for Cadbury’s Flake and Heroes, Rexona, Firedup.com (starring Bruce Willis) and Citroen starring Claudia Schiffer. His award-winning pop promos include that for Skunk Anansie.

With the commercial for the Zurich Financial sponsored Rugby Union Tour. Ad agency Joshua [independently managed agency within the Grey Global Group, USA] is the company behind the film and the cinematographer is camera legend, Vittorio Storaro, who has lit “Apocalypse Now”, “Sheltering Sky”, amongst others, and won an Oscar for “The Last Emperor” (also starred O’Toole). Peter O’Toole stars as the wizard in the story. O’Toole has not taken part in any commercials previously but he was extremely impressed with the script and wanted to work with Krygier and Storaro.