Krzysztof Zanussi

After learning the identity of the man who killed her husband, a young widow struggles with whether to forgive the killer or avenge her husband's death

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A 2005 novella film created to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Solidarity movement. It consists of 13 10-minute shorts. There are various forms: mini-feature, music video, documentary, animation, interview.

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A Polish ambassador finds his life falling into ruin following the death of his wife.

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An examination of the relationship between an indecisive medical student and his fiancee.

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Rose, an older woman living in Paris was born in Poland as a daughter of an aristocratic family. Her family house is now an impoverished home for the elderly.

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Tomasz, a doctor, and atheist, is diagnosed with cancer. His ex-wife offers him the money for treatment in Paris, but his lung cancer is past the operating stage. Facing imminent death, he questions the beliefs he has held all his life and starts experimenting with both his own life and those of others.

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A handsome young chauffeur hired by a powerful and charismatic businesswoman discovers he has been made an unwitting party to fraud, but his moral outrage is complicated: the married man allowed himself to be seduced by the woman, who threatens to tell the man's wife.

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A young TV producer struggles with his conscience when he becomes convinced that his TV program is covering up a lie, but the more he tries to reveal the truth the more uncertainty he discovers.

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An aging ballet legend who defected to France years before returns home to Poland for the first time to appear in a charity performance, and he immediately clashes with his ex-wife, who stayed behind when he defected.

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An idealistic scientist is encouraged by his wife to use his good looks to get ahead, but his new job carries with it temptations and traps.

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A classical singer who put his career on hold to raise a family gets a big break when a major company hires him for a televised New Year's Eve concert, but his shot at fame is threatened when, against his better judgment, he goes out on a rainy night and gets a cold.

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In this adaptation of an historical play by Pope John Paul II, painter Albert Chmielowski decides to devote his life to helping the homeless.

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A rational young man and his devoutly Catholic wife believe their sickly son may have leukemia. As they await further tests over a weekend they both struggle with a crisis of faith in both science and Catholicism.

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Despite its suggestive title, this multi-part Danish omnibus film is not a work of exploitation. Instead, it presents 20 different short films (back-to-back) on the general theme of Danish women, directed by filmmakers including Krzysztof Zanussi, Monika Treut, Gustav Hamos, David Blair, Vibeke Vogel, Dusan Makavejev, Morten Skallerud and Lars Norgaard. Some dramatic vignettes mix with other comedic ones, but all are offbeat and experimental. The picture includes one animated sequence (by Norgaard).

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Zanussi has described the film as his most autobiographical work. A young boy in post-World War II, Communist-dominated Poland, whose father's decision to remain in Britain after the war has made his family politically-suspect with the local Party authorities, is sent by his mother to stay with an "aunt" (in reality an old family friend) in Warsaw.

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A woman whose passport was denied under the previous Communist regime by a vindictive party secretary is given a chance to confront the woman and take revenge.

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May 13, 1981, afternoon. A general audience with the head of the Church is taking place in St. Mark's Square in Rome. Suddenly, the joyful buzz rising above the crowd of pilgrims is interrupted by the crack of gunshots. John Paul II, his face contorted with pain, slumps into the seat of the popemobile.

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A film by Krzysztof Zanussi inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s painting “The Lady with an Ermine”. The director takes us to the Museum Czartoryski in Cracow where he presents his favourite painting and with the aid of video effects, he wryly invites us to compare “The Lady with an Ermine” with the better known “Mona Lisa”.

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Henry Kesdi is a silenced classical composer and a survivor of the Holocaust. He is coaxed out from retirement by an inspired musicologist, Stefan, who convinces him to compose a complex symphony on his neglected piano. As a help Kesdi gets his new musical secretary. His loyal wife reluctantly accepts her as his young lover.

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Young homeless man Luke is not going to obey the laws established by his homeless colleagues, as well as the arbitrariness of the foreman when he finds himself in forced labor. But only resistance to his own kind does not give Luke anything: without housing and means of subsistence, and, finally, without basic rights to protect the individual, he no longer sees any light in this life.

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The story of catholic saint Maximilian Kolbe (1894-1941), who volunteered to die in place of a stranger in the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz.

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The miniseries charts Napoleon Bonaparte’s career from his return after the Egyptian campaign to his downfall and exile on Elba, portraying his political maneuvering, military ambition, and complex relationships with key figures such as Talleyrand, Fouché, Murat, Tsar Alexander, Joséphine de Beauharnais, and Countess Marie Walewska.

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Difficulty of human relations in a 3-cornered tale: a neurotic woman, idealistic young man and his mother. Tomek is a clean-cut, high-minded geography student. He lives with his mother Zofia, a sensitive, practicing Catholic, like her son. When he meets Julia, a depressed woman older than he, he first tries to comfort her, then invites her to stay with him and his mother. Tomek makes a trip to West Berlin to visit his well-off father. He refuses to take money from him and looks for work as a house painter. Julia ends up in a rest home for treatment, while Tomek is trying to make their relationship work.

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An Uruguayan diplomat brings his new wife with him on a business trip to Poland in the summer immediately preceding the outbreak of World War II.

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An unsuspecting student thinks that the wife of an arms dealer is unhappy, but in reality she appears as cynical as her capitalist man.

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An internist is accused of murdering the sixth of his seven wives. During the court hearing, numerous statements, especially those made by his former wives, confront him with his past. Finally acquitted, the doctor loses himself in feelings of deepest guilt and confusion as he searches for the truth about himself. The strict film adaptation of the novel by Max Frisch (1982).

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After the release of "Nostalgia", Andrei Tarkovsky runs out his Soviet authorities permission to work abroad: he has to go back home. But he understands from the messages of some friends and colleagues that his life in Russia would be even tougher than before. So he then decides to break with Soviet authorities and, a year before the Milan Conference of 1984 during which he will announce publicly his decision, he leaves his friends that are hosting him in Rome and takes refuge in a secret location.

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August 2015, a courtroom in Rostov-on-Don. A man is peering through the bars of his cage, his eyes reveal that his nerves are about to snap. Today he will be handed down a sentence to which he must submit: 20 years’ imprisonment in Siberia for terrorism. The man is Oleg Sentsov, a film director and Maidan activist born in Simferopol in the Ukraine. He is charged with leading an anti-Russian terrorist movement and having planned attacks on bridges, power lines and a monument of Lenin. Sentsov defends himself, courageously and without flinching. He responds to the verdict with an emphatic denial of his crimes and instead accuses the accusers themselves ...

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A biographical documentary on Edward Zebrowski, a director, screenwriter, and educator. The film draws from his notes, revealing his thoughts on illness and history as human fate. Friends from the Film School in Lodz and the TOR Film Group, including Wojciech Marczewski and Agnieszka Holland, discuss his legendary status as a scandalmonger and thinker. His wives, Barbara Lisowska and Magdalena Jaworska, share intimate details of his life. Students Agnieszka Smoczynska and Adrian Panek speak respectfully of him. Zebrowski’s biography is complemented by excerpts from his school works and original films, with scenes featuring him in Zanussi’s films like “The Illumination.” Directed by Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz, the documentary captures a reflective and nostalgic atmosphere, reflecting Zebrowski’s mature life and sense of lost opportunities.

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Polish-Flemish philosopher Alicja Gescinska interviews national and international personalities with diverse philosophical and religious backgrounds.

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The unique story of film directors who managed to critic the Communist regime while being produced by the State: this is Polish cinema's golden age, in the 1970s. Director Ania Szczepanska, born in Poland and raised in France, meets prominent filmmakers, producers, actors such as Andrzej WAJDA, Marcel LOZINSKI, Krzyszstof ZANUSSI, Kristina JANDA, Ryszard BUGAJSKI and confronts them the testimonies of the State men of that time. Through unknown archives, forgotten documentaries and excerpts of cult films, she relates how the Solidarnosc people ended up in Cannes.

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Indian documentary about Indian film history and P. K. Nair, the founder of the National Film Archive of India and guardian of Indian cinema. He built the archive can by can in a country where the archiving of cinema was considered unimportant.

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Director Krzysztof Zanussi's collaboration with Wojciech Kilar was a worldwide phenomenon. The artists' paths had already converged in the 1960s, and were not to part until Kilar's death. The composer wrote music to the young filmmaker's debut picture Struktura kryształu / The Structure of Crystals (1969), and Zanussi was so impressed with both the soundtrack and Kilar's understanding and general savvy that he kept submitting his artistic proposals only to him. As a result this outstanding duo completed over forty feature films, as well as documentaries and television works. In a short story by Krzysztof Zanussi we learn more about this unique, long-term cooperation.

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In honor of the twentieth anniversary of Andrei Tarkovsky's death, student filmmaker Dmitry Tarkovsky sets out in search of his favorite director's legacy. His journey leads him to fifteen moving interviews in California, Italy, Sweden, and finally, Russia as he attempts to come closer to the meaning of one of Tarkovsky's most enigmatic beliefs... that death doesn't exist.

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Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz directed this insightful TV documentary (2005) tracing the Polish filmmaker's career. Former classmates reminisce about Kieslowski's happy beginnings at the Lodz film school and how his dissatisfaction with some of his early documentaries prompted the dramatic work and stylistic experimentation that led to his monumental series of films The Decalogue (1989). Wim Wenders, Agnieszka Holland, and Juliette Binoche are among the many admirers weighing in on his hard-driving work methods and preoccupation with the ephemeral. In Polish, French, and German with subtitles.

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A 2005 novella film created to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Solidarity movement. It consists of 13 10-minute shorts. There are various forms: mini-feature, music video, documentary, animation, interview.

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The film tells about the famous Lithuanian director Vytautas Žalakevičius. The film contains many excerpts from the director's films and conversations with him. Here he talks about life, creativity and about himself. Vytautas Žalakevičius is remembered by his friends and associates.

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Tomasz, a doctor, and atheist, is diagnosed with cancer. His ex-wife offers him the money for treatment in Paris, but his lung cancer is past the operating stage. Facing imminent death, he questions the beliefs he has held all his life and starts experimenting with both his own life and those of others.

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A classical singer who put his career on hold to raise a family gets a big break when a major company hires him for a televised New Year's Eve concert, but his shot at fame is threatened when, against his better judgment, he goes out on a rainy night and gets a cold.

Open details →

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The miniseries charts Napoleon Bonaparte’s career from his return after the Egyptian campaign to his downfall and exile on Elba, portraying his political maneuvering, military ambition, and complex relationships with key figures such as Talleyrand, Fouché, Murat, Tsar Alexander, Joséphine de Beauharnais, and Countess Marie Walewska.

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Filip buys an 8mm movie camera when his first child is born. Because it's the first camera in town, he's named official photographer by the local Party boss. His horizons widen when he is sent to regional film festivals with his first works but his focus on movie making also leads to domestic strife and philosophical dilemmas.

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In this mixture of fiction and documentary Krzysztof Zanussi invites a number of Poland’s great actors—Maja Komorowowska, Daniel Olbrychski, and Jan Nowicki—to "revisit" characters they played in the director's earlier works.

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The emotional inertia and chaos affecting a narcoleptic woman, a fatally ill writer and a gay doctor, and their attempts to escape from their dead-end situations.

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Under the leadership of an ex-footballer, a bunch of homeless men set up a football team and train hard to take part in the world championship.

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A businessman, spoiled by the good life, learns that he suffers from a serious heart condition. He can only survive by finding a donor immediately. In the hospital, he accidentally meets a young man whose grief and job loss have taken away all his will to live. He is suicidal, so he is the perfect donor, and they must find a way to help him leave this world...

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After learning the identity of the man who killed her husband, a young widow struggles with whether to forgive the killer or avenge her husband's death

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A 2005 novella film created to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Solidarity movement. It consists of 13 10-minute shorts. There are various forms: mini-feature, music video, documentary, animation, interview.

Open details →

A Polish ambassador finds his life falling into ruin following the death of his wife.

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Following the death of his mother in '80s Poland, 12-year-old Wojciech has taken the brunt of his stressed father's frustrations with him; the boy frequently gets punished via belt. Wojciech's father occasionally tries to, instead, bond with him, but soon snaps back to his short-fused habits. Apart from Wojciech's friend Bartek, no one does anything to help. Jump to present day, Wojciech is a furrow-browed journalist who spends most of his spare time spelunking alone. Just like his father, he has serious anger management issues. Fellow caver Tania feels inexplicably attracted to him, but the love of a good woman may not be enough.

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An examination of the relationship between an indecisive medical student and his fiancee.

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Rose, an older woman living in Paris was born in Poland as a daughter of an aristocratic family. Her family house is now an impoverished home for the elderly.

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The film is based on the well-known, translated into many languages novel of writer Pawel Huelle. It is imbued with nostalgia and the atmosphere of mystery story of a group of children, fascinated by the figure of a man named David Weiser.

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Tomasz, a doctor, and atheist, is diagnosed with cancer. His ex-wife offers him the money for treatment in Paris, but his lung cancer is past the operating stage. Facing imminent death, he questions the beliefs he has held all his life and starts experimenting with both his own life and those of others.

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The Polish entry in the BFI’s Century of Cinema series of documentaries

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A handsome young chauffeur hired by a powerful and charismatic businesswoman discovers he has been made an unwitting party to fraud, but his moral outrage is complicated: the married man allowed himself to be seduced by the woman, who threatens to tell the man's wife.

Open details →

A young TV producer struggles with his conscience when he becomes convinced that his TV program is covering up a lie, but the more he tries to reveal the truth the more uncertainty he discovers.

Open details →

An aging ballet legend who defected to France years before returns home to Poland for the first time to appear in a charity performance, and he immediately clashes with his ex-wife, who stayed behind when he defected.

Open details →

A classical singer who put his career on hold to raise a family gets a big break when a major company hires him for a televised New Year's Eve concert, but his shot at fame is threatened when, against his better judgment, he goes out on a rainy night and gets a cold.

Open details →

In this adaptation of an historical play by Pope John Paul II, painter Albert Chmielowski decides to devote his life to helping the homeless.

Open details →

A rational young man and his devoutly Catholic wife believe their sickly son may have leukemia. As they await further tests over a weekend they both struggle with a crisis of faith in both science and Catholicism.

Open details →

Zanussi has described the film as his most autobiographical work. A young boy in post-World War II, Communist-dominated Poland, whose father's decision to remain in Britain after the war has made his family politically-suspect with the local Party authorities, is sent by his mother to stay with an "aunt" (in reality an old family friend) in Warsaw.

Open details →

A woman whose passport was denied under the previous Communist regime by a vindictive party secretary is given a chance to confront the woman and take revenge.

Open details →

A film by Krzysztof Zanussi inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s painting “The Lady with an Ermine”. The director takes us to the Museum Czartoryski in Cracow where he presents his favourite painting and with the aid of video effects, he wryly invites us to compare “The Lady with an Ermine” with the better known “Mona Lisa”.

Open details →

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The story of catholic saint Maximilian Kolbe (1894-1941), who volunteered to die in place of a stranger in the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz.

Open details →

The miniseries charts Napoleon Bonaparte’s career from his return after the Egyptian campaign to his downfall and exile on Elba, portraying his political maneuvering, military ambition, and complex relationships with key figures such as Talleyrand, Fouché, Murat, Tsar Alexander, Joséphine de Beauharnais, and Countess Marie Walewska.

Open details →

Difficulty of human relations in a 3-cornered tale: a neurotic woman, idealistic young man and his mother. Tomek is a clean-cut, high-minded geography student. He lives with his mother Zofia, a sensitive, practicing Catholic, like her son. When he meets Julia, a depressed woman older than he, he first tries to comfort her, then invites her to stay with him and his mother. Tomek makes a trip to West Berlin to visit his well-off father. He refuses to take money from him and looks for work as a house painter. Julia ends up in a rest home for treatment, while Tomek is trying to make their relationship work.

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An Uruguayan diplomat brings his new wife with him on a business trip to Poland in the summer immediately preceding the outbreak of World War II.

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This is the true story about a group of Romani's (gypsy) in occupied Poland during World War II as they confront the atrocities and tragedies of a forgotten holocaust.

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An unsuspecting student thinks that the wife of an arms dealer is unhappy, but in reality she appears as cynical as her capitalist man.

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Shortly after World War II an American soldier (Norman) and a Polish refugee (Emilia) fall in love. Eventually he will return to the U.S. and both expect that she will soon follow him with her mother. Emilia's mother is sick, but will recover with the right medicine. But the mother, and not Emilia, knows that there will only be one ticket...

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A once celebrated, still famous actress lives an "unreachable" and secluded life in a villa in Berlin's Grunewald forest. One day, a young man uses a trick to break into her voluntary isolation, and a subtle game develops between the two, in which each slips into different roles to deceive the other. Soon, the boundaries between appearance and reality blur.

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