CONTENT WARSAW: Since joining Netflix seven years ago, Łukasz Kłuskiewicz, the streamer’s director of film and content acquisitions in Central and Eastern Europe, has helped create a healthy string of local scripted hits. Now the exec is looking to “debunk some myths” about Netflix, not least that it is only focused on Poland in the region.
Łukasz Kłuskiewicz at Content Warsaw 2025
Łukasz Kłuskiewicz, Netflix’s director of film and content acquisitions in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), has always talked up the global streamer’s commitment to local content.
Speaking at Content Warsaw last year, Kłuskiewicz declared: “Netflix is definitely here to stay for good. We want to invest in local content and support the community in the process of delivering great stories to the screen.”
This year, he returned to Content Warsaw to discuss Netflix’s approach to content licensing and acquisitions, explaining what drives the streamer’s content strategy – whether it’s commissioning, licensing or acquiring content exclusively.
“We are interested in any piece of content that is interesting for our members and could please our members. This is the only factor we apply,” Kłuskiewicz told delegates yesterday.
The fruits of that strategy appear to be paying off: the successes have come thick and fast since Kłuskiewicz, a seasoned film and TV executive who knows the local market well, joined Netflix in December 2018.
Among recent successes are 2021 Polish romantic comedy Squared Love; 2022 crime biopic How I Fell in Love With a Gangster and costume melodrama Forgotten Love (Znachor), which made the platform’s global Top 10 list for eight weeks in 2023. Meanwhile, Detective Forst, the Polish adaptation of Remigiusz Mróz’s crime stories, was one of the top 10 most-watched non-English-language series of 2024.
2025 doesn’t look set to disappoint either. In a recent interview with local online cultural title Onet Kultura, Kłuskiewicz declared that 2025 “is shaping up to be our best year yet.” Among the titles he highlighted was a second season of 1670, the mockumentary satirical comedy series that was a surprise hit for Netflix with local audiences when it premiered at the end of 2023.
Forgotten Love (Znachor) spent eight weeks in Netflix’s global Top 10 in 2023
Commenting on the impact of the show, Kłuskiewicz said: “The scale of interest around it was a huge surprise for everyone. It was also surprising how engaging this series turned out to be and how much it changed the language, because sayings from it have permeated everyday Polish.
“We also know how many commercial reactions this series has caused: suddenly there were T-shirts with quotes from the series, sweatshirts, mugs… This shows that the series has become a part of the viewers’ everyday lives.”
At Content Warsaw this week, the exec highlighted upcoming title Aniela, a comedy series that premieres on Netflix on June 11. Starring Małgorzata Kożuchowska, it follows a woman who loses everything after a public scandal with her husband and must rebuild her life from scratch.
“We are super excited to see how Polish audiences and global audiences react to Aniela,” Kłuskiewicz said. “It is going to be our next big premiere. And for those who are familiar with Polish TV content, [this] is a brand-new version of Małgorzata Kożuchowska. It’s a fantastic performance from this super-popular actress. We are very excited to see how our members react.”
The streamer is also a readying a new season of The Mothers of Penguins, a drama about an MMA fighter navigating the challenges of accepting her son’s autism, which first launched on Netflix in November 2024.
Detective Forst was one of the streamer’s most popular non-English-language shows of 2024
Meanwhile, Heweliusz, a five-part miniseries about the sinking of the MS Jan Heweliusz in 1993, is set to air in late 2025. The large-scale production was shot by Warsaw prodco Telemark over 105 days.
Netflix is also working on a new film with Oscar nominee Jan P Matuszyński, the director behind The Eastern Gate, the hit spy thriller series released on competitor streamer Max at the start of 2025.
Since Kłuskiewicz’s appointment, Netflix has produced more than 70 titles locally. The exec, who was initially responsible for licensing local films and series, now also oversees the streamer’s slate of original films in Poland and CEE.
Kłuskiewicz has worked in the film and TV industry in Poland and CEE for over 15 years. Before joining Netflix, he was head of the film and drama department at Polish public broadcaster TVP, where he supervised the development and production of local series including long-standing hits M jak Miłość, Na Dobre i na Złe, Czas Honoru and Rodzinka.pl. He was also programming director for the TVP Seriale channel.
The exec left the state-owned broadcaster at a time of major upheaval. Law & Justice, a right-wing populist and national conservative political party in Poland, took power in 2015 and began introducing laws that gave it extraordinary powers to directly control the governance structures of public media. The result was an erosion of TVP’s editorial independence, with critics accusing Law & Justice of turning it into its own propaganda machine.
The second season of 1670 was a surprise hit for Netflix
However, it was also a time when Poland, which has by far the largest television market in the region and a long-established cinema tradition, was being viewed by global streamers as an opportunity to expand their operations internationally. Netflix launched its service across Poland in 2016. It then plumped for Warsaw as its CEE headquarters in 2022. At that time, Netflix invested US$115m in Polish originals and created more than 2,600 jobs for actors, scriptwriters, directors and below-the-line crews.
But since choosing Warsaw as its HQ, the streamer has been suffering from a growing perception in CEE that it is only focused on Poland. Kłuskiewicz was keen to dispel that perception at Content Warsaw this week: “There might be such an impression that because our CEE office is based here in Warsaw, we can be less present in other CEE markets like the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, Croatia and so on. So, there might be such an impression, but in fact we are present there and we are present there on a daily basis,” he said.
Stressing that the door was always open to players across CEE, Kluskiewicz pointed to fellow Netflix execs Anton Romalijskij, CEE content acquisitions manager, and Martyna Kurasiewicz, manager of content in the region. “[They] are in constant touch with distributors, with TV broadcasters, with filmmakers from neighbouring CEE countries. So, we are present, we are available, we are approachable and we are definitely interested in licensing local content from CEE countries,” he said.
Kurasiewicz reiterated the streamer’s “local for local” content strategy. “We are here to be in touch with local audiences and then to please them. We are here for our members in Poland, and that’s why ‘local for local’ is exactly what we always say, and this is the lens we apply to every single project we review – original or licensed,” he noted.
The Mothers of Penguins centres on an MMA fighter and her autistic son
“When it comes to licensing, we really want to build a catalogue that is relevant to local audiences’ needs. So once we decide to license films from Poland, this is how we assess them; they should be attractive to our members in Poland. When we license Czech content, it should be attractive to our members in the Czech Republic. ‘Local for local’ is our mantra.”
At last year’s Content Warsaw, Kurasiewicz underlined how important it was for Netflix to be part of “the entire ecosystem, and we also feel responsible for the ecosystem” because by supporting local cinemas through licensing films, for example, he said “this supports the growth of demand and everyone benefits from it. It also grows the market, the industry and improves the capability of the market, the individual talents, producers and the overall structure.”
This year, the exec went further, providing an example of how Netflix’s presence is supporting the local cinema industry, and not by always backing the highest-grossing films at the box office.
“Probably the biggest highlight here is Screw Mickiewicz [Piep*zyc Mickiewicza], a Polish young-adult comedy. Part one wasn’t a great success in cinemas, but still we decided to license it to offer it to our members. The really big surprise for everyone is that it turned out to be a really big hit [on Netflix] and the success was so convincing that the producer decided to invest in part two. It was released in January 2025 here in Poland and has already crossed 800,000 admissions in cinemas, which makes it five times bigger than part one, so there’s a great story of how to deliver attractive stories to our members.”
Five-part miniseries Heweliusz is based on real events
Kurasiewicz also spoke about the business models Netflix employs when working with partners in the region. Noting that the streamer collaborates with “three groups of partners” – local distributors, broadcasters and distributors – he said the company’s approach was always “flexible” and on a case-by-case basis. “First of all, we want to be a good partner for our partners, we want to be trusted partners, which means we try to understand their situation first and foremost. So, we want to be an understanding partner, which translates into flexible collaboration, meaning we always discuss with partners case by case,” he explained.
However, he denied existing partners act as “gatekeepers” to Netflix. “We have the same group of partners, although we are always open to have new partners. One of the myths is that some partners are perceived as gatekeepers to Netflix. Not true. Anyone can reach out to us, anyone can submit an offer, anyone can let us know about a nice package of films, a nice package of series or an individual type.”
He went on to confirm that the streamer is also using new business models, such as day-of-broadcast deals. “Day-of-broadcast means we agree with broadcasters that we share the rights at an early stage. There’s a broadcast on a TV channel shortly after that, and usually an episode of the series lands on Netflix,” he said.
How such deals work out depends very much on the territory, he added. “When you look at a country like Poland, it’s very typical that series are broadcast as weekly titles, weekly series; every Sunday there is a specific title. But when you look at countries like Ukraine, series are usually broadcast day after day, so very often all the episodes are broadcast in one or two weeks. So, we always look at the local specifics and try to find the way forward.”
In a further effort to “debunk the myths” about Netflix, Kurasiewicz said the streamer did not insist on exclusivity on IP. “In fact, we just own a small portion of IPs that we offer to our members. A lot of our content is licensed, not even exclusively licensed. So sometimes it’s either co-exclusive or non-exclusive. So, owners of the rights can sell titles to many buyers, not only Netflix, and definitely it’s not a sine qua non condition for us to have content exclusively.”
