Director of documentary and feature films, screenwriter. Born in 1941 in Warsaw; passed away there in 1996.

In 1962 Krzysztof Kieślowski graduated from a technical theatre college and went on to work at the Teatr Współczesny (Contemporary Theatre) in Warsaw, where he was a dressing room attendant for such celebrities of the Polish stage as Tadeusz Łomnicki, Aleksander Bardini and Zbigniew Zapasiewicz. He went on to study at and graduate from the State Higher School of Film, Television and Theatre in Łódź in 1968, and he received his directing degree from this institution in 1970.

While in Łódź, Kieślowski studied with Kazimierz Karabasz and Jerzy Bossak and it was under their guidance that he created his first documentary student films ("Urząd / The Office", "Z Miasta Łodzi / From the City of Łódź"). He made his first short feature ("Tramwaj / The Tram") under the eye of Wanda Jakubowska. He debuted professionally with a television documentary titled "Zdjęcie / The Photograph", and after graduating from film school, he was affiliated with the Wytwórnia Filmów Dokumentalnych (Documentary Film Studio) in Warsaw until 1983, for which he made documentary films almost exclusively. Throughout these years, however, he clearly sought to scale down his documentary film production in favor of feature films. In 1973 he made his first narrative film, the made-for-television feature "Przejście podziemne / The Underground Passage". In 1974 he became a member of the Tor (Track) Film Studio, which was initially headed by Stanisław Różewicz before Krzysztof Zanussi assumed the helm.

In 1985 Kieślowski began to collaborate on screenplays with renowned Warsaw attorney Krzysztof Piesiewicz. Their first joint project was the film "Bez końca / No End", which marked the beginning of a long-time collaboration that would see them work together on all of the films Kieślowski would direct afterwards. "Krótki film o zabijaniu / A Short Film About Killing" and "Krótki film o miłości / A Short Film About Love" (1988), two films in the "Dekalog / Decalogue" series, brought Kieślowski international recognition. In 1991 ("Podwójne życie Weroniki / The Double Life of Veronica") Kieślowski began making his films as Polish-French co-productions, and from 1993 all his films were collaborative efforts with the renowned French producer Marin Karmitz. After completing the "Trzy kolory / Three Colors" trilogy (1993-94), Kieślowski announced that he was abandoning the filmmaking profession. During the last months of his life, he worked with Piesiewicz on a screenplay for a triptych consisting of works titled "Raj / Paradise", "Czyściec / Purgatory" and "Piekło / Hell".

Between 1978 and 1981, Krzysztof Kieślowski served as vice chairman of the Stowarzyszenie Filmowców Polskich (Association of Polish Filmmakers). He also spent some time teaching at film schools located in West Berlin, Helsinki, Łódź, Katowice and in Switzerland.

During his lifetime, Krzysztof Kieślowski won numerous awards for his work as a maker of documentary and feature films, among them a Grand Prix at the International Film Festival in Mannheim for "Personel / Personnel" (1975), a Gold Medal at the Moscow International Film Festival for "Amator / Camera Buff", the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival for "Trzy kolory: Niebieski / Three Colors: Blue" and the Silver Bear at the "International Film Festival" in Berlin for "Trzy kolory: Biały / Three Colors: White". In 1976 he received the "Drożdze" / "Yeast" Award of "Polityka" weekly, and in 1985 Kieślowski received a lifetime achievement award at the 15. Lubuskie Lato Filmowe / 15th Lubuskie Film Summer in Łagów. In 1990 the director became an honorary member of the British Film Institute for his "outstanding contributions to the culture of the moving image," and in 1993 he received the Order of Literature and Art of the Minister of Culture of France. In 1994 Kieślowski was awarded the Danish C.J. Soning Award for his contribution to the development of film art and European culture, and that same year he was nominated for an Academy Award for his direction of "Trzy kolory: Czerwony / Three Colors: Red". In 1995 he became a member of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Kieślowski received the European Media Award (Girona) in 1996 and was a winner of the Felix Award of the European Film Academy. The Department of Radio and Television at the University of Silesia in Katowice was named after him in the year 2000.

"This is a name familiar to all of cultured Europe (...). His films have won distinction at the world's most prominent festivals - from Cannes to Venice, Berlin, Chicago (...) from Strasbourg to New York, Hong Kong and Jerusalem,"

wrote Stanisław Zawiśliński ('Kieślowski. Bez końca' / 'Kieślowski - No End,' Warsaw, 1994) just two years before the passing of Krzysztof Kieślowski, a director whose films have been seen and admired by millions around the world.

Krzysztof Kieślowski was an exceptional individual in Polish narrative and documentary cinema. He was someone who cleared the way for others, who was neither afraid to ask difficult questions nor the most fundamental and universal of questions. Zawiśliński believes that humans were already Kieślowski's primary subject of interest when he embarked on his career as a filmmaker.

"Man clashing with society, with power, with the System, with his environment, with his family and with himself. Man entangled in contradictions, dependencies and conflicts. Man constantly forced to make choices in a world of established values and bearing responsibility for those choices. Man encroached upon by politics and man beyond politics. Man facing the inevitable and eternal effort towards freedom, equality and just, eternally seeking love, joy and understanding..."

Finally, man who asks himself and others (just as the director does) one fundamental question: "How should one live?"

This question is present throughout Kieślowski's oeuvre, be it in his documentary or narrative films, though at first glance there seems to be a vast chasm between his documentaries and the films of the "Three Colors" series or even his middle period features like "Personnel", "Camera Buff", "Spokój / The Calm" or "Blizna / The Scar", which were considered examples of the cinema of moral anxiety.

Krzysztof Kieślowski, known widely as a director of narrative features, was for many years predominantly a maker of documentaries. He seemed to remain a documentary filmmaker even when he began directing feature films, and he persisted in this stance up through the production of "No End". It is difficult to agree with Mikołaj Jazdon, the author of a monograph devoted to Kieślowski's documentary cinema ("Dokumenty Kieślowskiego" / "Kieślowski's Documentaries," Pozńaś, 2002), who claims that this aspect of the director's oeuvre was never granted the esteem it deserved. It is impossible of course for a documentary filmmaker to compete with a director of feature films, but among documentary filmmakers Kieślowski was truly considered a leading light, especially in Poland.

"The artistic and box office successes of 'Decalogue,' 'The Double Life of Veronica' and 'Three Colors,' eclipsed Kieślowski's achievements as a documentary filmmaker. Those who remember 'The Tram,' his first student film, might even insist that the director was destined to make features from the beginning. In fact, this short, soundless film, which tells the story of a meeting between a boy and girl gone awry, contains so much of what would ultimately interest the director about reality, life and coincidence. These same interests also characterized his work as a documentary filmmaker..." wrote Bogusław Żmudziński in a catalogue that accompanied the retrospective of Kieślowski's films organized during the 33rd International Festival of Short Films in Krakow in 1996.

In this same publication, Marek Hendrykowski wrote,

"Documentaries were Krzysztof Kieślowski's first great love. Today, when his worldwide successes as a director of feature films have obscured his documentaries, eclipsed them, we somehow forget how significantly the documentary film years preceding this success shaped Kieślowski's artistic identity and how much the his features owe to his experience as a documentary filmmaker."

Mikołaj Jazdon goes even further in his analysis, finding the last stages of Kieślowski's oeuvre equally colored by his experiences with documentary filmmaking, though one might think that by this time the documentary way of examining reality would have been lacking entirely from his work. Nevertheless, the years 1966-80 were for Kieślowski very much the years of documentary filmmaking. In these twelve years he produced more than a dozen documentary films that featured collective heroes ("The Office", "Fabryka / The Factory", "From the City of Łódź", "Szpital / The Hospital", "Robotnicy '71 - Nic o nas bez nas / Workers 1971 - Nothing About Us without Us") and individual protagonists ("Murarz / The Bricklayer", "Życiorys / Curriculum Vitae", "Z punktu widzenia nocnego portiera / A Night Porter's Point of View", "Pierwsza miłość / First Love" or "Siedem kobiet w różnym wieku / Seven Women of Various Ages"). Some of these works reassessed propagandistic theses or views broadly disseminated in the Polish People's Republic. These include "Byłem żołnierzem / I Was a Soldier", which presents World War II as perceived by soldiers who had lost their eyesight during the conflict, and "Workers 1971", a portrait of those who began to speak in their own voices after the workers' protests of December 1970. Many of these films, and perhaps most, explored social, economic and political realities in the Polish People's Republic. This group includes the training film "Curriculum Vitae", produced as an education tool for Communist Party activists, and the dramatic tale of the former managing director of the "Renifer" (Reindeer) company titled "Nie wiem / I Don't Know". The latter group also includes the metaphor of totalitarian rule titled "A Night Porter's Point of View" and "Gadajace głowy / Talking Heads", a borderline film that is thought to span into yet another group of Kieślowski's documentaries. These in turn are characterized by a strong existential aspect and include "Seven Women of Different Ages" and, to a certain extent, "First Love".

Kieślowski began making narrative features alongside documentaries around the time of his television debut, "The Underground Passage". His feature films of this period were almost documentaries themselves, and around this time his documentary projects began to include such forms as the staged documentary ("Curriculum Vitae") or documentaries that were simultaneously narrative features, as "A Night Porter's Point of View" was with its hero seemingly playing... himself.

In an interview with Stanisław Zawiśliński, Kieślowski said,

"Everyone wants to change the world whenever they make the effort to do something. I don't think I ever believed the world could be changed in the literal sense of the phrase. I thought the world could be described."

As Mikołaj Jazdon notes, this view matches the hypotheses formulated by Julian Kornhauser and Adam Zagajewski in their famous 1974 book "Świat nieprzedstawiony / The Non-Represented World". As the authors of this book recommended that writers do, Kieślowski showed reality through the prism of micro-worlds, places that were seemingly normal, that we encounter in our everyday lives. These took the form of a social security office ("The Office"), a tractor factory ("The Factory"), a funeral home ("Refren / Refrain"), a hospital ("The Hospital") and a train station ("Dworzec / The Railway Station"). Kieślowski believed, as Jazdon wrote,

"that this description, like an image reflected in a drop of water, would contain within itself a universal picture of contemporary Polish reality."

In the process, he attempted to penetrate the hidden mechanisms that governed the system's operation. He proved consistent in this penetration, pursuing it in his student film "The Office", as well as in films like "The Factory", "Przed rajdem / Before the Rally", "Workers 1971" and "A Night Porter's Point of View". It is also evident in those of his films in which he presented the stories of private individuals. "First Love" is one such example, telling the story of the love between two very young people, but simultaneously exploring the Poland that the protagonists had to face at the time.

This creative stance was characteristic of a group of documentary filmmakers who were noticed at the festival of documentary and short films in Krakow in 1971. Thus, it is a stance shared by Kieślowski and a number of other filmmakers, including Wojciech Wiszniewski, Tomasz Żygadło and Paweł Kędzierski. All of these artists attempted if not to change, then at least to show a true picture of life in the Polish People's Republic. As Kieślowski himself said ("O sobie" / "About Myself," Krakow 1997),

"Official utterances described the Communist world (...) as it was supposed to look, not as it looked in truth."

Politics was also present in the works of these filmmakers, which distinguished their films from those of the so-called "Karabasz school." This was in spite of the fact that Kieślowski saw Karabasz as one of his masters, considering his "Muzykanci / The Musicians" one of the most outstanding achievements in world cinema.

However, Kieślowski was not consistent in his opposition to the "Karabasz school." This becomes evident when we look at "First Love" or one of the director's last documentary films like "Seven Women of Different Ages", about which Tadeusz Lubelski wrote ("Kontrapunkt" - Magazyn Kulturalny "Tygodnika Powszechnego" / "Counterpoint" - Cultural Magazine of "Popular Weekly," 3/2000) that they creatively developed the formula of the "Karabasz school."

At the time of their release, these films were considered near manifestoes of distrust toward the Communist system. Some were referred to as agitprop films ("The Factory"), while others were labeled excessively dogmatic in their presentation of views or characterized by the "talking heads" formula of television. It is worth underling, however, that Kieślowski did not so much want to fight those in power, as

"to work towards reducing the distance between people and government, (...) rather than increasing this distance," as Tadeusz Sobolewski wrote ("Kino Krzysztofa Kieślowskiego" / "The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieślowski," ed. Tadeusz Lubelski, Krakow 1997).

His protagonists, in both his documentaries and in those features considered part of the cinema of moral anxiety, do not fight the system. Rather, like the factory director of his feature "The Scar", the former factory director of his documentary "I Don't Know", the protagonist of the documentary "The Bricklayer" or the doctors in the documentary "The Hospital", they simply want to do a good job. This desire to do a good job clashes with a system that does not like that sort of working. Kieślowski's protagonists thus constantly engage in battle over the simplest things ("The Hospital", "Before the Rally") and either prove capable of realizing their passions or are destroyed in the process of pursuing them ("Curriculum Vitae", "I Don't Know"). The desire to settle down to a peaceful life in some niche (the feature "The Calm", the documentary "First Love") proves just as difficult to realize. Kieślowski's protagonists are forced to take sides ("Personnel", "I Don't Know", "Camera Buff") and to make difficult political and life choices.

It is noteworthy that in the case of both his documentaries and those features that are part of the cinema of moral anxiety, the protagonists are similar, the issues are similar and finally the penetrating descriptions of the social and political realities of the Polish People's Republic are similar. We might also add what Kieślowski noted in an interview with S. Zawiśliński, that both in features and documentaries, he and his colleagues attempted to "observe the world reflected in a drop of water." Thus, the story told in "Personnel", which was the first of Kieślowski's television features to be warmly received by both critics and viewers, is "the story of a theatre that was designed (...) in reality to tell viewers about Poland." Krzysztof Kieślowski made only one other documentary after 1980 ("Seven Days of The Week"). His abandonment of the documentary form was in some way required by the situation of artists in the Polish People's Republic, as artists were not only restricted in their production possibilities but were also unsure if authorities would not use their films or footage for purposes other than those intended by them. Yet this departure from the documentary was also caused by the limitations that characterize documentary filmmaking in general. At some point, Kieślowski stated that it was difficult in a documentary to show, say, love, though he himself had attempted this ("First Love"). The director also noted the danger that derived from a documentary filmmaker invading the lives of his protagonists.

Nevertheless, virtually all of his films until "No End" give us the impression that we are watching documentaries. His need to refer to concrete, known and believable realities, as Małgorzata Dipont wrote of "Personnel" (in: "Kieślowski - No End"), the presence of non-professional actors, real places and protagonists playing themselves (like Krzysztof Zanussi did in "Camera Buff"), were all characteristics of Kieślowski's documentary stance, evident in his feature films of this period.

"In spite of his efforts to perfect his skills and expand his means of artistic expression, none of his films is set 'everywhere,' in other words 'nowhere,' each has identifiable features that signal a specific place and time," wrote Dipont.

"Przypadek / Blind Chance", similar both to "Personnel" and to "Camera Buff", as well as to "The Double Life of Veronica", proved a breakthrough. The film was firmly set in Polish realities just before the socio-political transitions of August 1980, yet simultaneously, as Alain Masson stated ("Positif," 12/1988, in: "Kieślowski - No End"), it was reminiscent of a structurally clear philosophical tale.

This structural clarity proved an unusually important feature of Kieślowski's films. Mirosław Przylipiak ("Kwartalnik Filmowy" / "Film Quarterly," 23/1998) wrote that Kieślowski based the dramatic narrations of his documentary films on the development of a thought. Like other documentary filmmakers,

"he understood the documentary as lying in opposition to feature film, which was nothing unusual," wrote Przylipiak.

The unusual thing was that unlike others he did not base his narrations on oppositions like narrative-reality or fiction-truth, but upon the opposition of narrative to thought.

"Documentary films differed from features in that their composition was discursive, based on the development of a thought, idea or the author's message," noted Przylipiak.

Kieślowski himself spoke of this with Kazimierz Karabasz (K. Karabasz, "Bez fikcji - z notatek filmowego dokumentalisty" / "No Fiction - From the Notes of a Documentary Filmmaker," Warsaw 1985), giving the examples of "A Night Porter's Point of View", where the impulse was to tell the story of a growing inner intolerance, and "The Hospital". Though the latter was read as a great metaphor of the Polish People's Republic, with its shortages, its absurdities and its people who overcome the strangest barriers to achieve something in the face of adversity, Kieślowski had intended to make a film about human fraternity, and only then did he go in search of an object capable of exemplifying this phenomenon. The consequences of adopting this attitude in film proved colossal.

Although the director viewed documentaries as opposed to feature films, the method of building narratives described above is especially noticeable in his last feature films ("Decalogue", "The Double Life of Veronica", "Three Colors"). These differ from his documentary films and his earlier features in that they lack specific cultural, political or social detail. Time and place are stipulated concepts, even if they are not difficult to identify. Yet counter to their author's contention, and far better than in his documentaries where the substance of life put up resistance and did not succumb easily nor in its entirety to authorial intention, it is these films that best reveal structures based on the development of a thought. In his last films, Krzysztof Kieślowski freed himself of external limitations and gained the ability to follow through on ideas like a scientist in a laboratory.

"No End" was an artistic failure, also to its author's mind. Yet there is no doubt that this film influenced the choice that Kieślowski made about the films he would make in the future. This was the first film on which Kieślowski collaborated with attorney Krzysztof Piesiewicz on the screenplay. In his autobiographical book "About Myself," Kieślowski called the film "a breakdown," having in mind the non-cohesive linking of its various threads: the moral, the persuasive and the metaphysical - the latter represented by the figure of the spirit. Having analyzed this failure, the director radically changed not so much his thinking about the world, as the artistic means he chose to use.

"Every film," he wrote, "is in some sense a trap. You want to tell a specific, a real story, but at the same time a story that would be somewhat different. Now I strive to avoid these traps. I try to extract myself from them, and I think there should be one clear line that should drive things. 'Decalogue' was a good exercise in this. The films in the series were short, and as a result this line could be clearly identified, delineated."

As he put it, Kieślowski developed a desire to tell "simple stories," stories that were clear, logically constructed and bore no marks of struggling against the elemental force that is reality.

Standing at a kind of crossroads, Kieślowski could have chosen differently; he could just as well have elected to become Poland's Ken Loach, whose work had so fascinated him at one time.

Yet he decided to embark on a different path. Beginning with "Decalogue", he began to strip his films of the trappings of reality, simplifying them to the bare minimum and simultaneously increasing the density of his images. He resorted to means of expression differing from any he had used before and thus developed the film language that allowed him to conquer Europe. At the same time, however, he lost part of the Polish audience that had been faithful to him until then, an audience that was surely not persuaded by what he wrote in his autobiography:

"I betrayed nothing of myself in 'Veronica,' 'Three Colors,' 'Decalogue' or 'No End.' I think instead that I enriched my portrayals of people with that entire sphere of feelings, intuitions, dreams and superstitions that constitute the inner life of every human being."

This disparity in the reception of his films, deriving from the different viewpoints of Polish and Western viewers, seems more significant in Kieślowski's case than in that of any other filmmaker.

The "Decalogue" series seems to be set in Polish realities. Each film takes place in what appears to a typical, gray, gloomy, Communist-era Polish housing development. Though the average western viewer might perceive these settings as very realistic, to Polish viewers they seemed excessively abstract, lacking the features of everyday life, the daily details that make this up. But this is content which was certainly within Kieślowski's reach given his skills as a documentary filmmaker.

"I attempted to show individuals in difficult situations. All the contextual social difficulties, or difficulties of everyday life, remained somewhere in the background,"

wrote the director of "Decalogue" ("O sobie" / "About Myself"), simultaneously admitting to simplifying the image of daily life in Poland in the 1980s.

In films like "Personnel", "The Calm", "Camera Buff" or "Blind Chance", the realities that were the setting for the films' action, i.e. the so-called "second level," were important. This layer rendered the world presented on screen synonymous with reality, and thus it was easy to forge links between the films' protagonists and viewers. Simultaneously, one can indeed say that all these films showed "individuals in difficult situations."

So in "Decalogue" Kieślowski did not so much resort to new subject matter, as he did modify his film language and consciously reach for a set of different formal solutions. In his autobiography, he wrote the following of himself and Krzysztof Piesiewicz:

"We intuitively began to suspect that 'Decalogue' could consist of a set of universal films. So we decided to throw politics out of the series entirely."

This idea proved very successful to the Kieślowski-Piesiewicz team. After the extraordinary international success of "A Short Film About Killing" (with its universal message), the remaining films of the "Decalogue" series - which sometimes referenced the Ten Commandments only very loosely - met with a tremendous response, especially in the West.

Kieślowski's subsequent films, "The Double Life of Veronica" and the films in the "Three Colors" series (all of which were produced in France), concerned the sphere of human emotions almost exclusively.

"Along with a radical break with what Krzysztof Kieślowski calls 'politics,' but which should probably be perceived as something much broader, the director's films (except 'Three Colors: White') lose the ground under their feet and are not anchored in a specific reality. The beginnings of this process are already evident in the 'Decalogue' films, whose poetic heroines are the epitome of excessive sensitivity and emotionality, moving about in a void, seeming to float above the ground. (...) His mentally precarious heroines live inauthentic lives, in a reduced reality," wrote Maria Kornatowska ("The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieślowski").

Like those of the "Decalogue" series, his later films feature simple stories about complex human feelings. They are similar to the "Decalogue" films but simultaneously very different. Maria Kornatowska notes that with "The Double Life of Veronica", Kieślowski began paying close attention to visual aesthetics, carefully selecting the dominant hues of his imagery, filming his heroines differently, highlighting and adding to their beauty through photography that was akin to that characteristic of advertising. These measures ultimately proved the source of the new style of his films. In a sketch that appears in the same volume as Kornatowska's text, prominent Polish film critic Alicja Helman also notes how Kieślowski's camera treated the Polish heroines of the "Decalogue" series differently from their French successors in his subsequent films.

Universalism seemed to "consume" reality in Kieślowski's films, but this hardly means that with "Decalogue" the director ceased drawing on his documentary experiences. Quite the contrary, without said experiences, Kieślowski would not have been able to build such superbly detailed filmic structures.

Rafal Marszałek is indubitably correct when he notes that without Kieślowski's documentary skills, he would never have created "A Short Film About Killing". In discussing the shockingly detailed scene of the criminal's execution, the critic reminds readers that the use of detail there was similar to that in the film "The Hospital" ("The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieślowski").

In her analysis of the films of the "Decalogue" series, French scholar Veronique Campan ("The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieślowski") also reflects on features characterizing Kieślowski's construction of filmed images that point to a relation with documentary film.

"Kieślowski," writes Campan, "is clearly a director who describes; his camera follows his protagonists closely, recording their minutest gestures, even the least significant among them. His cinema might be defined as contemplative seeing as the phases that are preparatory and introduce the mood are more numerous and longer than the actual action phases."

Campan also notes the precision and accumulation of detail that do not recreate off-screen reality in these films, instead serving one sole purpose - the building of emotion. Slow camera movements that lead viewers' eyes from object to object, shots in which minute details draw the viewers' gaze (a rag tossed into a bucket in the fifth film of the series, a fly on the edge of a glass in the second film) and other formal measures are calculated to draw attention to the objects which Kieślowski has invested with symbolic meaning. This is also the purpose of his frequent close-ups and atypical camera angles.

Detail, which appears frequently in both the "Decalogue" and later films, thus plays an important role in conveying filmic information, but it serves a different purpose than merely that of building reality. Writing about one of the films in the "Three Colors" triptych, the previously cited Małgorzata Kornatowska notes:

"Reality in 'Three Colors: Red' is replaced by intense visuals, the deep, living, pulsating fabric of the images."

In Kornatowska's opinion, this visual intensity is composed of various props, objects, gestures and people encountered by the protagonists - all of which the turns in harbingers of something.

"They often carry mysterious, magical meaning; they enable links to be drawn between events and characters. Crystal balls, magic rings that can cast a spell on reality, a necklace of glistening and chiming glass beads, dolls... A plethora of the most normal items."

This penchant for using signs is equally evident in Kieślowski's other films of this period. Kornatowska perceives this last stage of Kieślowski's oeuvre as the director's effort to join in the "fashionable, world, pop-metaphysical current." And she is hardly alone in holding this view.

Kieślowski was a controversial director. This is something that even such a great enthusiast of Krzysztof Kieślowski's cinema as Stanisław Zawiśliński readily admits, writing in the previously cited book:

"What delights some about Kieślowski's current cinema annoys and repulses others. What appears to some to be fresh, innovative, wise, moving, penetrating, to others seems 'counterfeit,' 'metaphysical gibberish,' 'professional mystification.'"

Filmography

Student films:

• 1966 "Tramwaj / The Tram" - Narrative student film made under the guidance of Wanda Jakubowska. The film centers on a meeting between a boy and a girl that goes awry and lacks dialogue entirely.
  
  
• 1966 "Urząd / The Office" (working title "Renta" / "The Pension") - Documentary student film made by Kieślowski at the State Higher School of Film, Television and Theatre under the guidance of Jerzy Bossak, Kazimierz Karabasz and Kurt Weber. A portrayal of bureaucrats who award disability pensions and of the applicants for said pensions. A vision of the bureaucratic machine and human drama.
  
  
• 1967 "Koncert życzeń / Concert of Requests" - Documentary film about youth behavior and subcultures.

Documentary films:

• 1968 "Zdjęcie / The Photograph" - Made-for-television film the starting point of which is a wartime photograph of two smiling boys holding rifles. We follow the camera crew as it searches for the two and finds them alive as adults.
  
  
• 1969 "Z miasta Łodzi / From the City of Łódź" (working title: "Łodzianie" / "People of Łódź") - Kieślowski's thesis film realized at the State Higher School of Film, Television and Theatre in Łódź under the guidance of Kazimierz Karabasz. The film is a portrait of the city of Łódź. Images of buildings that are falling apart are accompanied by optimistic commentary about the city and its industries.
  
  
• 1970 "Byłem żołnierzem / I Was a Soldier" (screenplay with Ryszard Zgórecki, direction with Andrzej Titkow) - The film tells the stories of a handful of soldiers who were blinded during World War II. The image of war it offers differs from that presented officially. It was produced for the "Czołówka" Film Studio, which was the film branch of the Polish Armed Forces. (Awards: 1971 - honorable mention from the Minister of National Defense; OFFK / National Festival of Short Films, Krakow - prize of "Żołnierz Polski" / "Polish Soldier" weekly.)
  
  
• 1970 "Fabryka / The Factory" - A reportage from a management meeting at the Ursus Tractor Factory in Warsaw inter-cut with footage of its workers working on the assembly-line. The film offers a depressing vision of a state enterprise operating within the Polish People's Republic and its Socialist economy. (Awards: 1971 - OFFK / National Festival of Short Films, Krakow, "Głos Robotniczy" / "The Worker's Voice" Award for the most penetrating analysis of contemporary social issues.)
  
  
• 1971 "Przed rajdem / Before the Rally" - A reportage on the many hurdles and traps that leading Polish rally driver Krzysztof Komornicki encounters in the Polish People's Republic during preparations for the Monte Carlo rally.
  
  
• 1972 "Refren / Refrain" (working title: "Pogrzeb czyli zabawa w chowanego" / "The Funeral, or Hide and Seek") - An exploration of the operations of a funeral home providing a vision of bureaucracy that is hard to escape, even after death.
  
  
• 1972 "Między Wrocławiem a Zieloną Góra / Between Wrocław and Zielona Góra" - A film about the copper mining center in Lubin.
  
  
• 1972 "Podstawy BHP w kopalni miedzi / Principles of Safety and Hygiene in a Copper Mine" - A commissioned educational film.
  
  
• 1972 "Robotnicy '71: Nic o nas bez nas / Workers 1971: Nothing About Us without Us" (working title: "Robotnicy" / "Workers"- direction with Tomasz Żygadło, Wojciech Wiszniewski, Paweł Kędzierski and Tadeusz Walendowski) - A look at Polish workers at the beginning of the 1970s. The film provides insight into the public mood at the time and the awakening of worker awareness, as well as the machinations and manipulations of government authorities after the social turmoil of December 1970. This version of the film was never shown. A censored version titled "Gospodarze / Hosts" was released in cinemas without the authors' consent. In addition, the authorities stole the film's soundtrack with the aim of using it against the workers who made statements in front of the camera.
  
  
• 1973 "Murarz / The Bricklayer" - A film made on Mayday (Communist labor day) about bricklayer Józef Malesa, a former 'leading laborer' and Communist Party activist. Malesa reminisces about his past, the Stalinist years and the turmoil of October 1956. The film provides a view of Polish history through the eyes of someone who was first seduced by the enthusiasm of building a new reality and then disappointed by the new order.
  
  
• 1974 "Prześwietlenie / X-Ray" - Made at the sanatorium of Sokołowsk in Lower Silesia, this film looks at individuals suffering from pulmonary disease and is a moving portrait of those living with illness.
  
  
• 1974 "Pierwsza miłość / First Love" - The story of two young people (aged 17 and 18) up through the moment their first child is born. The film offers a vision of the love between two young people who are beginning their lives as adults in the realities of the Polish People's Republic, where nothing is simple and every matter - even the simplest - requires multiple visits to multiple institutions. Their love proves to be a source of hope to them. Kieślowski planned to make a second installment about the couple's daughter titled "Ewa," "Ewunia" / "Little Ewa" or "Horoskop" / "Horoscope." This film was ultimately made in the year 2000 by Krzysztof Wierzbicki based on footage shot previously by Kieślowski ("Horoskop / Horoscope"). (Awards: 1974 - 11. MFFK / 11th International Short Film Festival, Krakow - "Złoty Smok" / "Golden Dragon" Special Prize of the Chairman of the State Radio and Television Commission; 14. OFFK / 14th National Short Film Festival, Krakow - "Złoty Lajkonik" / "Golden Lajkonik" Grand Prix of the Minister of Culture and Art; 1975 - Award of the Chairman of the State Radio and Television Commission.)
  
  
• 1975 "Życiorys / Curriculum Vitae" (45-minute film; abbreviated 28-minute version titled "Krótki życiorys / A Brief Curriculum Vitae"; screenplay with Janusz Fastyn) - A fictionalized documentary about a meeting of a Communist Party Voivodeship Control Committee reviewing the appeal of a worker excluded from the Communist Party. In spite of the fictional character of the worker and his fictional biography, the meeting transforms into a highly realistic trial of an individual who refuses to submit to authority and actually wishes to accomplish something. This is a vision of how those who rebel in the name of the fundamental principles of honesty and dignity are ultimately destroyed. The film was produced as an educational tool and shown during screenings organized for members of the Polish United Workers Party. (Awards: 1975 - "Syrenka Warszawska" / "Warsaw Mermaid" - Award of the Film Critics Club of the Association of Polish Journalists; 15. OFFK / 15th National Short Film festival, Krakow - "Brązowy Lajkonik" / "Bronze Lajkonik"; International Film Festival, Mannheim - Grand Prix; FPFF / Festival of Polish Feature Films, Gdańsk - Grand Prix for a Television Film.)
  
  
• 1976 "Szpital / The Hospital" - A film made in the emergency room of the traumatic surgery hospital located on Barska Street in Warsaw. Doctors who simply attempt to help the injured prove heroic when it is revealed that they must manage in the face of the frequent shortages that were typical of life in the Polish People's Republic, shortages which were often unusually bothersome to their work. (Award: 1977 - 16. OFFK / 16th International Short Film Festival, Krakow - Grand Prix "Złoty Smok" / "Golden Dragon"; "Syrenka Warszawska" / "Warsaw Mermaid" - Award of the Film Critics Club of the Association of Polish Journalists.)
  
  
• 1976 "Klaps / Slate" - A short impression composed of outtakes from Krzysztof Kieślowski's feature film titled "Blizna / The Scar".
  
  
• 1977 "Z punktu widzenia nocnego portiera / A Night Watchman's Point of View" - The portrait of factory watchman Marian Osuch, who reveals himself to be a discipline fanatic favoring complete control of everything and everyone. A metaphorical image of totalitarianism on the example of a rank and file, but simultaneously model, proponent of state terror. This is one of Kieślowski's few films with a clearly negative protagonist. (Awards: 1979 - 19. OFFK / 19th National Short Film Festival, Krakow - Grand Prix "Złoty Lajkonik" / "Golden Lajkonik" along with the film "Siedem kobiet w różnym wieku / Seven Women of Different Ages"; MFFK / International Short Film Festival, Krakow - FIPRESCI Award; International Film Festival, Nyon - "Silver Sesterce"; International Short and Documentary Film Festival, Lille - Jury Prize.)
  
  
• 1977 "Nie Wiem / I Don't Know" (preliminary title "Żyć czy spać" / "To Live or to Sleep") - The story of the managing director of the "Renifer" ("Reindeer") Leather Factory, who is stripped of his position. An exploration of life in a state enterprise, where bribery and infighting prove endemic. An image of the rotten Polish economy and realities of the 1960s. Premiered in 1981.
  
  
• 1978 "Siedem kobiet w różnym wieku / Seven Women of Different Ages" - The portraits of seven dancers who range from a teenager to a woman on the verge of ending her career. The seven portraits combine to form the portrait of one woman from childhood to old age. A poetic story of transcendence. Premiered in 1981. (Awards: 1979 - 19. OFFK / 19th National Festival of Short Films, Krakow - "Złoty Lajkonik" / "Golden Lajkonik" award along with the film "Z punktu widzenia nocnego portiera / A Night Porter's Point of View".)
  
  
• 1980 "Dworzec / The Railway Station" - A film about Warsaw's Dworzec Centralny (Central Station), which was a symbolic building of the "Second Poland" touted by new Communist Party First Secretary Edward Gierek. The realities of the train station (symbolizing Poland) are juxtaposed with propagandistic images of life in Communist Poland as seen on television monitors distributed throughout the station. Needless to say, the propaganda does not match reality.
  
  
• 1980 "Gadajace głowy / Talking Heads" - People of various professions and various ages, ranging from a one-year-old child to a one hundred-year-old woman, provide answers to the following questions: What year were you born in? Who are you? What do you think is most important? The result is a gallery of heads identified by their year of birth. The dreams and problems of people of various ages combine to constitute a story of human life. A two-year-old dreams of being a 'Syrenka' automobile (one of the erstwhile 'wonders' of Socialist technology), while a one hundred-year-old woman dreams of living longer. The film is simultaneously a story about Poland, about how Poles perceive their country and what they would have liked to change about it. The film's title is sarcastic (referencing a phrase used earlier by prominent critic Zygmunt Kałużynski in an unfavorable review of Kieślowski's work as a filmmaker). In this film, Kieślowski seems to predict what the world witnessed later in August of 1980, when Poles began to speak openly and publicly about the changes that needed to occur in the country. (Awards: 1981 - Oberhausen International Film Festival - Honorable Mention)
  
  
• 1988 "Siedem dni tygodnia / Seven Days a Week: Warsaw / Semaine a Varsovie" - This film, an installment of the 'City Life' international film series, observes seven people following their daily routines over seven days of the week. All of them ultimately meet each other for Sunday breakfast. The film is a symbolic image of an average Polish family and is almost entirely free of dialogue. Dutch production.

Feature Films:

• 1973 "Przejście podziemne / The Underground Passage" (screenplay with Ireneusz Iredynski) - A mid-length made-for-television feature in which a young teacher from the provinces arrives in Warsaw and encounters his wife, who left him some time ago, in a pedestrian underpass. The teacher attempts to revive his marriage, but the couple prove incapable of finding an understanding. The woman has already been changed by life in the big city, which has made her cold and cynical. The film is about a crisis of values at its core. Its nearly documentary style comes through in hand-held camera work, the editing and the form of narration. These measures render the reality it portrays more authentic. Ultimately the film is an intimate psychological drama about people's inability to find understanding.
  
  
• 1975 "Personel / Personnel" - A television feature that references the director's life. Like his protagonist Romek Januchta, Kieślowski was also a theatre dressing room attendant at one time. Mostly non-professional actors appear in the film - for instance, the leading role was assigned to first-year directing student Juliusz Machulski. The film, shot in real interiors and featuring a number of real theatre tailors, resembles a documentary. Exploring the insurmountable barrier between stage artists and support staff, the film is about the loss of youthful illusions and difficult choices in life. (Awards: 1975 - Mannheim International Film Week - Grand Prix and International Catholic Film Prize; Andrzej Munk Prize awarded by the State Higher School of Film, Television and Theatre in Łódź; "Samowar" / "Samovar" Cinema Enthusiasts' Prize awarded by the Film Discussion Club in Świebodzin; 1976 - FPFF / Festival of Polish Feature Films, Gdańsk - Grand Prix for a Television Film and Journalists' Prize for a Television Film; "Złota Kamera" / "Golden Camera" awarded by "Film" monthly for Best First Feature Directing in 1975; Lubuskie Lato Filmowe / Lubushan Film Summer, Łagów, Federation of Film Discussion Clubs Award for lifetime achievement with special emphasis on the film "Personel / Personnel"; 4. Koszalińskie Spotkania Filmowe "Młodzi i Film" / 4th "Youth and Film" Koszalin Film Meetings, Koszalin - Grand Prix "Wielki Jantar" / "Great Jantar"; 1979 - Lubushan Film summer, Łagów - "Złote Grono" / "Golden Grapes.")
  
  
• 1976 "Blizna / The Scar" (based on Romuald Karas's book "Puławy - rozdział drugi" / "The Town of Puławy - Chapter Two") - A social and psychological drama in which the director of a chemical enterprise supervises the building of a plant whose location is causing local inhabitants to protest. The film is in the cinema of moral anxiety genre. The factory director is aware of the potentially dangerous consequences which the choice of location might have. Though these include conflicts with the local inhabitants and workers, he sticks by the decision. The season of social upheaval in 1970 arrives and the protagonist takes the side of the workers. When the workers' protests are quelled, he returns to his hometown in Silesia highly disappointed. (Awards: 1976 - FPFF / Festival of Polish Feature Films, Gdańsk - Special Jury Prize; 1978 - LLF / Lubushan Film Summer, Łagów - "Złote Grono" / "Golden Grapes".)
  
  
• 1976 "Spokój / The Calm" (based on the short story "Krok za bramę" / "A Step Beyond the Gate" by Lech Borski from the story collection "Noc gitarzystów" / "The Night of the Guitarists") - A television feature that is considered to have been one of the pioneering films in the cinema of moral anxiety. The story of worker Antoni Gralak who is released from prison and wishes to settle down to a calm life. He fails to find peace though he does find a woman to marry and a place to live. The realities of the Polish People's Republic cause him to enter into conflict with his construction worker colleagues who decide at one point to organize a strike, and with the manager of the construction site who wishes to make an informer of him. These complications conclude tragically. Premiered on television in 1980. (Awards: 1981 - "FPFF / Festival of Polish Feature Films", Gdańsk - Special Jury Prize; "Złoty Ekran" / "Golden Screen" awarded by "Ekran" / "Screen" weekly.)
  
  
• 1979 "Amator / Camera Buff" - Considered one of the best films of the so-called cinema of moral anxiety, this is the story of amateur filmmaker Filip Mosz, a supply worker at a state-owned plant. Mosz purchases a film camera in order to record the first months of his newly born daughter's life. However, he proceeds from filming his child to filming the plant places around his small town. He learns that a camera can be used both to tell lies and to tell the truth. Mosz, however, wants only to tell the truth. This desire exacts a price when his family falls apart and he enters into conflict with other individuals. The last scene is symbolic with Filip directing the camera at himself and beginning to tell the story of his own life. This film explores the place of art in the world, the concept of courage, the uncompromising spirit, the boundaries of responsibility for one's word and the price of creative freedom. (Awards: 1979 - FPFF / Festival of Polish Feature Films, Gdańsk - Grand Prix for Best Film; 11th Moscow International Film Festival - Gold Medal and FIPRESCI Award; MFF "Człowiek - praca - twórczość" / "Man - Work - Art" International Film Festival, Lublin - Audience Award; KSF "Młodzi i Film" / "Youth and Film" Koszalin Film Meetings, Koszalin - "Jantar" Award for undertaking issues of crucial importance to the ideological, moral and intellectual development of youth; 1980 - Berlin International Film Festival - "Interfilm" Award of the International Evangelical Jury; Chicago International Film Festival - "Golden Hugo" Grand Prix.)
  
  
• 1981 "Krótki dzień pracy / A Short Work Day" (screenplay with Hanna Krall based on her reportage "Widok z okna na pierwszym piętrze" / "The View from the Window on the First Floor") - A television feature (premiered in 1996) about the social turmoil in Radom in 1976. We see these events through the eyes of Wacław Ulewicz, First Secretary of that city's Municipal Communist Party Committee, whose office was located in the Voivodeship Communist Party headquarters to which the demonstrators laid siege. In addition to actors, the film featured an appearance by prominent opposition activist Tadeusz Mazowiecki as himself.
  
  
• 1981 "Przypadek / Blind Chance" - This film, premiered in 1987, tells three stories of a young man named Witek Dlugosz. In each of the stories, the hero purchases a train ticket. In the first he makes the train and meets a Communist idealist who inspires Witek to become a Communist Party activist; in the second, he gets into a fight on the train platform, is arrested, brought before a court and becomes an opposition activist. In the third, he does not make the train and meets a woman at the train station, falls in love and goes on to lead a normal life. Both the first and second stories end with the hero drowning in dilemmas and bitterness during the workers' protests of August 1980. In the third, which might seem the happiest of the three stories, the hero dies in an airline crash. In the film, Kieślowski portrays coincidence as the unpredictable director of human fate. (Awards: 1987 - Moscow International Film Festival - Soviet Filmmakers' Association Award; FPFF / Festival of Polish Feature Films, Gdansk - Best Screenplay.)
  
  
• 1985 "Bez końca / No End" (screenplay with Krzysztof Piesiewicz) - The film is set during Martial Law in Poland and centers on the young widow of an attorney who defended activists during political trials. The woman finds herself unable to deal with her husband's death. The spirit of the departed intervenes in her life and the widow constantly feels this presence. Her longing for her deceased husband ultimately leads her to commit suicide. The storyline of the heroine's personal experiences is intertwined with that centering on the political trial of a young worker. In the film, Kieślowski offers a series of reflections on the political stance of society and the professional ethics of lawyers.
  
  
• 1988 "Krótki film o zabijaniu / A Short Film About Killing" (screenplay with Krzysztof Piesiewicz) - The cinema version of part five of the "Decalogue" television series. A young man murders a taxi driver without any specific reason. He is caught, tried and sentenced to death. His execution is presented in extraordinary detail, a measure that was the filmmakers' protest against the death penalty. (Awards: 1988 - FPFF / Festival of Polish Feature Films, Gdańsk - Grand Prix for Best Film; Cannes International Film Festival - Jury Prize and FIPRESCI Award; "Felix" European Film Award; Award of the Chairman of the State Cinema Committee for 1987; 1989 - "Złota Kaczka" / "Golden Duck" awarded by "Film" monthly for Best Polish Film of 1988.)
  
  
• 1988 "Krótki film o miłości / A Short Film About Love" (screenplay with Krzysztof Piesiewicz) - The cinema version of the part six of the "Decalogue" television series. A young postal work uses binoculars to spy on an attractive neighbor. The inexperienced boy's curiosity transforms into fascination. The woman, who is emotionally cynical and reduces love to sex, proves incapable of appreciating the feeling offered to her by the boy in time. (Awards: 1988 - San Sebastian International Film Festival - Special Jury Prize, FIPRESCI Award and Award of the OCIC - International Catholic Organization for Film; Chicago International Film Festival - prize-winner; FPFF / Festival of Polish Feature Films, Gdańsk - Grand Prix for Best Film and Best Screenplay Award; 1989 - Festiwal "Gwiazdy Jutra" / "Stars of Tomorrow" Festival, Geneva - Best Director Award; Award of the Chairman of the State Cinema Committee; Sao Paulo International Film Festival - Film Critics' Award; Strasbourg Film Festival - Award of the City of Schiltigheim; 1990 - "Złota Tasma" / "Golden Reel" for Best Polish Film of 1989, awarded by the Criticism Club of the Association of Polish Filmmakers.)
  
  
• 1988 "Dekalog / Decalogue" (screenplay with Krzysztof Piesiewicz) - A made-for-television series of ten short features whose themes reference the fundamental ethical code of Judaism and Christianity, though in some cases this relation is relatively distant.
  
  "Dekalog I / I Am the Lord Thy God" - A young scientist blindly believes his own estimations of ice hardness calculated on his computer. Based on these, he rashly allows his son to go ice-skating on the local pond. The child drowns and the father blames himself for the death. Science is shown as incapable of providing sufficiently certain answers for phenomena that can always be affected by additional unforeseen circumstances ruled by a higher force.
  "Dekalog II / Thou Shalt Not Take the Name of Thy Lord God in Vain" - A young woman whose husband is hospitalized and battling a terminal disease finds that she is pregnant with another man's child. She makes her decision about whether to give birth to the child contingent upon whether her husband will survive his battle. She insists that her husband's doctor provide her precise information about her husband's chances of surviving. The doctor consciously gives her the answer that will prevent the woman from aborting the child.
  "Dekalog III / Honor the Sabbath Day" - This film centers on a woman once abandoned by her lover. He chose his family over her and is now an exemplary husband. The woman now finds herself deeply depressed and decides to play a dangerous game. She decides that she will commit suicide if she proves incapable of seducing the man who once loved her and spending Christmas Eve with him. She succeeds in doing so in a peculiar manner, by tricking and lying to the man. She nevertheless sees herself as having won the bet with fate and abandons her decision to kill herself.
  "Dekalog IV / Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother" - A father and daughter sense, though unclearly, that the feelings they share go far beyond the familial bond existing between them. They have thus far not found the courage to admit this. The girl, a theatre school student, provokes a situation which she hopes will incite her father to declare his feelings for her. Namely, she shows her father a forged letter from her mother and his wife, deceased for a number of years. The letter states that the girl is the daughter of another man. This revelation incites the father to reveal his true feelings, and this truth proves in line with what the girl wanted it; yet at the same time they both realize that independent of any feelings they might have, they remain father and daughter. A real letter from the mother stating the same as the forgery is destroyed and never read.
  "Dekalog V / Thou Shalt Not Kill" - television version of "Krótki film o zabijaniu / A Short Film About Killing"
  "Dekalog VI / Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery" - television version of "Krótki film o miłości / A Short Film About Love"
  "Dekalog VII / Thou Shalt Not Steal" - A mother, who protected her teenage daughter from scandal by acknowledging her daughter's child as her own, years later finds herself accused of theft. The adult daughter concludes that she was simply robbed of the child and wishes to recover it. The child, a little girl of only a few years, becomes the center of a conflict whose participants perceive her as something that can be acquired and taken away from mothers.
  "Dekalog VIII / Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness" - A dignified woman, now a professor of ethics, remembers that during the war she refused help to a young Jewish girl because this would have forced her to lie. She sought justification for her refusal in principles she applied strictly and interpreted very impersonally. This decision now casts a shadow on her entire life.
  "Dekalog IX / Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Wife" - The story of a married couple deprived of a satisfying sex life by the husband's illness. The truly destructive force in this relationship, however, proves to be jealousy. This film is at times referred to as "A Short Film About Jealousy."
  "Dekalog X / Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Goods" - Two brothers inherit a valuable stamp collection from their father. They develop a passion for it when they learn its value. They subsequently embark on a quest aimed at adding the one stamp that would make the collection complete. Willing to do anything to acquire it, one of them sacrifices a kidney to finally obtain the stamp. When the entire collection is subsequently stolen, the absurdity of their situation and behavior is revealed to them.
  (Awards: 1989 - Venice International Film Festival - FIPRESCI Award and "Young Cinema" Award; World Film Festival Montreal - Critic's Choice Award; International Films Meeting, Dunkirk - Critics' Choice Award; San Sebastian International Film Festival - Award of the OCIC - International Catholic Organization for Cinema; Sao Paulo International Film Festival, Film Critics' Award; 1990 - "Złoty Ekran" / "Golden Screen" Award of "Ekran" / "Screen" monthly for 1989 for his direction of "Dekalog / Decalogue"; "Srebrna Taśma" / "Silver Tape" - Award of the Italian Film Critics' Organization for Best Foreign Film Presented in Italy; 1994 - Award of the "Bible and Culture" Foundation in Stuttgart for currency in undertaken topic matter, above all in "Decalogue"; 2000 - Special Prize of the American National Society of Film Critics for outstanding achievement in the Foreign Film category). A Polish-West Berlin co-production.
  
  
• 1991 "Podwójne życie Weroniki / La double vie de Veronique / The Double Life of Veronica" (screenplay with Krzysztof Piesiewicz) - Two identical young women, named the same and similarly sensitive, live in parallel in two different countries. The psychological link between them is strong, though they do not know each other and only have an intuition of their relationship. The one living in Poland is a singer. When she dies of overexertion during a concert, the second, living in France, abandons her efforts to become a musician on impulse. (Awards: 1992 - "Złota Kaczka" / "Golden Duck" Award of "Film" monthly for Best Polish Film of 1991; Cannes International Film Festival - Ecumenical Jury Prize.) Polish-French co-production.
  
  
• 1993 "Trzy kolory: Niebieski / Trois couleurs. Bleu / Three Colors: Blue" (screenplay with Krzysztof Piesiewicz). Julie loses her husband and little daughter in an automobile accident. She proves incapable of finding another purpose in life; she is free and can elect to do anything, but the blow of her family's death renders her incapable of finding the strength to take advantage of her freedom. (Awards: 1993 - International Film Festival, Venice - Golden Lion; 1994 - three nominations for the "Caesar" Award of the French Academy of Film Art: Best Film, Best Direction and Best Screenplay; Tarnów, Tarnowska Nagroda Filmowa / Tarnow Film Prize - "Maszkaron" / "Gargoyle" Audience Award; "Złota Kaczka" / "Golden Duck" awarded by "Film" monthly - Special Prize for Achievements in 1993.) Polish-French co-production.
  
  
• 1994 "Trzy kolory: Biały / Trois Couleurs. Blanc / Three Colors: White" (screenplay with Krzysztof Piesiewicz) - An attractive French woman abandons her husband, a dull Polish émigré hair stylist. She clearly feels far superior to him. The desperate Pole, however, proves surprisingly cunning. He plans his revenge to prove his value to her, regain her admiration and perhaps even her love. Kieślowski frequently underlined that in this film he approached comedy in a manner highly atypical of his work. (Awards: 1994 - International Film Festival, Berlin - Silver Bear for Directing; 1995 - "Złota Kaczka" / "Golden Duck" award by "Film" monthly for the Best Polish Film of 1994.) Polish-French co-production.
  
  
• 1994 "Trzy kolory: Czerwony / Trois couleurs. Rouge / Three Colors: Red" (screenplay with Krzysztof Piesiewicz) - This film full of symbols and signs centers on people searching for their "other halves." The story is designed to persuade viewers that ideal pairs of this kind have been programmed by fate, yet their "halves" might pass each other in time and space without ever coming together. Therefore, in order to avoid losing our opportunity at bliss, we should carefully read the coded signs that appear before us. (Awards: 1994 - Oscar nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Best Direction, as well as Best Cinematography for Piotr Sobociński; BAFTA nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Best Direction; nominations for the "Caesar" Award of French Academy of Film for Best Screenplay and Best Direction; G. Melies Award.) Polish-French co-production.

Others:

Krzysztof Kieślowski also directed a number of television theatre productions, including "Pozwolenie na odstrzał / License for a Culling" (based on the writings of Zofia Posmysz, 1972), "Szach Królowi / Checking the King" (based on Stefan Zweig's "Nowela szachowa" / "A Chess Novella," 1973), "Kartoteka / The Card Index" (a play by Tadeusz Rozewicz, 1976) and "Dwoje na hustawce / Two on a Swing" (a play by William Gibson, 1976). Kieślowski also directed a staging of his own play "Życiorys / Curriculum Vitae" (based on his film of the same title) at the Stary Teatr (Old Theatre) in Krakow.

Several films have been made based on Kieślowski's screenplays. In 2000 Jerzy Stuhr made "Duże zwierzę / A Big Animal" (screenplay adapted from a short story titled "Wielblad" / "The Camel" by Kazimierz Orłoś). In 2001, German director Tom Tykwer's feature "Niebo / Heaven", produced in Germany and Italy, was based on Kieślowski's and Piesiewicz's screenplay ("Raj / Paradise").

A number of documentaries have been made about Krzysztof Kieślowski. These include Krzysztof Wierzbicki's "I'm so-so" (1995) and Kieślowski i jego "Amator" / Kieślowski and His "The Camera Buff" (1999), Dominique Rabourdin's "Lekcja kina / A Cinema Lesson" (1996) and Mikołaj Jazdon's "Ostatnie spotkanie z Krzysztofem Kieślowskim / The Last Meeting with Krzysztof Kieślowski" (1996).

Author: Ewa Nawój and Jan Strękowski, May 2004.

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