Krzysztof Kieslowski

Final entry in a trilogy of films dealing with contemporary French society concerns a model who discovers her neighbour is keen on invading people's privacy (imdb)

First of a trilogy of films dealing with contemporary French society concerns how a composer deals with the death of her husband and child (imdb)

Second of a trilogy of films dealing with contemporary French society shows a man dealing with a Polish immigrant whose wife wants to divorce him because he can't perform in bed (imdb)

Two parallel stories about two identical women; one living in Poland, the other in France. They don't know each other, but their lives are nevertheless profoundly connected.

19-year-old Tomek whiles away his lonely life by spying on his opposite neighbour Magda through binoculars... (imdb)

The plot couldn't be simpler or its attack on capital punishment (and the act of killing in general) more direct (imdb)

Witek runs after a train. Three variations follow on how such a seemingly banal incident could influence the rest of Witek's life... (imdb)

It's 1982: Poland is under martial law, and Solidarity is banned. Ulla, a translator working on Orwell, suddenly loses her husband, Antek, an attorney (imdb)

Filip buys an 8mm movie camera when his first child is born. Because it's the first camera in town,... (imdb)

1970. After discussions and dishonest negotiations, a decision is taken as to where a large new chemical factory is to be built and Bednarz... (imdb)

A portrait of a town where some people work, others roam around in search of Lord knows what . . . A town Rhich is full of eccentricities, full of ali sorts of absurd statues and various contrasts ...full of ruins, hovels, recesses. (patoche.org)

Romek, an idealistc 19-year-old boy, takes a job as a tailor in the costume department of a Warsaw theater company where his new colleague, Sowa, is pressured to make a costume for an overbearing soloist, named Siedlecki, who does not like the final result and takes his problems on Sowa and Romek who defends him. (imdb)

The insane government bureaucracy at a state pension window. (imdb)

A boy shyly watches a girl on a tram. Only when he exits the tram, and its too late, does he realize that he must meet her. (imdb)

Krzysztof Kieslowski interviewed a number of ordinary people (born at various times over the preceding 100 years), asking them who they were and what they wanted from life. (imdb comments)

A young couple leave a lake campsite on motorbike at the same time as a bus full of youths. The boy accidently loses a tent along the road which is picked up by those in the bus who offer a trade of the tent for his girl. (imdb)

When a director films, or 'takes' a shot, each is identified by having a 'slate' or 'clapperboard' with the information regarding the shot written in - what shot number it is and which take it is. What Kieslowski has done her is a little experiment of recovering the clappers and splicing them into a short film. They are all taken from his film The Scar (Blizna). Its sort or magic/anti-magic. (imdb)

The daily life of a night porter in Poland during socialist regime.

A portrait of the various people waiting for someone or something in Warsaw's Central Railway Station. (Senses of Cinema)

A working day in the Ursus tractor factory.

24 hours in the life of a hospital from the point of view of the doctors and nurses. (imdb)

A group of veterans recount a horrifying experience when trapped in a minefield, resulting in each losing their sight. This is an incredibly powerful anti-war film, showing the horrors of war first hand, in stark close-ups without gratuitous gore. The physical injuries are not quite so emphasized as much as the emotional scaring, with the soldiers expressing their deep regret and longing for a better quality of life.

The story concerns Jozef Malesa. He was once the darling of the party, the son of two old party activists, a worker of heroic reputation, his own commitment to The Movement unquestioned. He was chosen to be destined for great things, specially educated and pushed forward to positions of responsibility in the Party. Eventually he decides, because of the ethical pressures which he feels from the obstructionism of the bureaucracy from above, he asks to return to be a simple bricklayer.

A pretty 17 year old girl is told she's pregnant by a doctor who also says that she is not a candidate, for some unexplained reason, for an abortion. Instead she is going to marry her boyfriend. The boyfriend, 20, is going to get an exemption from the draft for this. (imdb)

Life and death by the numbers. (imdb)

Subtle portraits of seven women: episodes in which each day of the week shows a ballerina of classical dance at work or in rehearsal; but the ages of the dancers vary from the smallest child taking her first steps in ballet to the eldest ballerina who is now a ballet teacher.

This is such a strange and peculiar film. I had assumed it was a documentary and as such seemed to combine two Kieslowski strains - the meeting and the personal narrative. I kept thinking, as the man who was testifying before a Party Committee which was going to decide whether or not to expel him from the Party. As he tells his story, the curriculum vitae or 'Life Story' of the title, I kept thinking this was such a perfect Kieslowski story that he couldn't have done better if it was scripted.

Here he collects the stories of men in a tubercular sanitarium which repeats, to a lesser effect, the methodology of Bylem zolnierzem (I Was a Soldier) (1970). After everyone has told their story, and are seen in a long shot sitting on a terrace attended by a very pretty nurse, Kieslowski delivers the punchline- a bus descends into a nearby town whose factories fill the valley with smoke containing who knows what health destroying toxins. Its all as simple as one, two, three. (imdb)

A short working day for sure: the main character is unable to complete his regular hours. A local party secretary has to face a mob of strikers protesting hefty increases in food prices by the central government. The embattled secretary decides at first to stick it out at the party's office instead of making the recommended hasty escape.

Filmed in 1976 and shelved for five years. A young man in his twenties leaves prison after a three-year sentence. He wants to start a new life in a place where he is not known and dreams only of a job, a wife and a family. He succeeds partially in fulfilling these dreams, but then runs into a conflict on a construction job between the corrupt boss and fellow workers secretly planning a strike. He becomes a pawn in one camp while remaining true to his ideals in the other. (imdb)

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.

Filmed after the strikes of December 1970 and the downfall of Gomulka, the film was intended to portray the workers' state of mind in 1971.

A school teacher from a small town in Poland comes to Warsaw to see his estranged wife, a window dresser, in the hope that she will return to him rather than give him a divorce. (imdb)

Ten days of preparation for the Monte Carlo rally. The two Polish drivers battle with the technical shortcomings of the Polish Fiat 125 and overwhelming bureaucracy. They did not finish the race. An allegory of the country's industrial and economic problems.

People do not have time for materialistic dreams in WARSAW, here they have to work in order to survive. The story follows six Warsaw natives, one each day, through their daily rituals of life. At breakfast of the seventh day, it becomes clear that these people are members of the one and the same family, giving deeper meaning to the characters’ struggle for life. The late Krzysztof Kieslowski, born 1941, did various jobs before going to the Film School in Lodz, graduating in 1969. He made ma