Biography for
Krzysztof Kieslowski More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

27 June 1941, Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland

Date of Death

13 March 1996, Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland (cardiac arrest)

Height

6' 0½" (1.84 m)

Mini Biography

Krzysztof Kieslowski graduated from Lódz Film School in 1969, and became a documentary, TV and feature film director and scriptwriter. Before making his first film for TV, Przejscie podziemne (1974) (TV) (The Underground Passage), he made a number of short documentaries. His next TV title, Personel (1976) (TV) (The Staff), took the Grand Prix at Mannheim Film Festival. His first full-length feature was The Scar (1976) (The Scar). In 1978 he made the famous documentary From a Night Porter's Point of View (1979) (Night Porter's Point of View), and in 1979 - a feature Camera Buff (1979) (Camera Buff), which was acclaimed in Poland and abroad. Everything he did from that point was of highest artistic quality.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Zbigniew Pasek zbigniew@engin.umich.edu

Mini Biography

Mr. Kieslowski started his career shooting documentaries and later became associated with the "cinema of moral anxiety" movement. It grouped several Polish directors, including Krzysztof Zanussi and Andrzej Wajda, and aimed at depicting the conditions of Poles under communism. His best known work was the Three Colors trilogy: "Red", "White" and "Blue". "Red" brought him Academy Award nominations for best director and best screenplay (with Krzysztof Piesiewicz) in 1995, "Blue" shared the Golden Lion at Venice in 1993, and "White" earned Mr. Kieslowski the best director award at Berlinale in 1994.

IMDb Mini Biography By: <darb@loc.gov>

Spouse

Maria Cautillo

(21 January 1967 - 13 March 1996) (his death) 1 child

Trivia

Was denied acceptance into film school twice. Passed on the third.

Announced his retirement from filmmaking after completing Three Colors: Red (1994).

Battled complications of AIDS at the time of his death (according to "Hello" magazine obituary), in addition to having had open-heart surgery.

Was a member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1989.

Had one daughter Marta (b. 1972)

At one point he was filming Three Colors: White (1994) while editing Three Colors: Blue (1993) and writing Three Colors: Red (1994).

He was made a Fellow of the British Film Institute in recognition of his outstanding contribution to film culture.

One of his favorite films was Ken Loach's Kes (1969).

Personal Quotes

If I have a goal, then it is to escape from this literalism. I'll never achieve it; in the same way that I'll never manage to describe what really dwells within my character, although I keep on trying.

[on Ingmar Bergman]: I can identify with what Bergman says about life, about what he says about love. I identify more or less with his attitude towards the world... towards men and women and what we do in everyday life... forgetting about what is most important.

[on Andrey Tarkovskiy]: Andrey Tarkovsky was one of the greatest directors of recent years. He's dead, like most of them. That is, most of them are dead or have stopped making films. Or else, somewhere along the way they've irretrievably lost something, some individual sort of imagination, intelligence, or way of narrating a story. Tarkovsky was certainly one of those who hadn't lost this.

What do I want? Calmness. You can only aspire to it. The path is interesting. Who am I? A retired film director. That's the truth now.