The Krzysztof Kieslowski Collection (1976-1988)

Krzysztof Kieslowski’s feature film debut, The Scar presages his future triumphs Camera Buff and Blind Chance in its even-handed social critique and richly personal characterizations. A former documentary filmmaker, Kieslowski here weaves a story of contradiction, compromise and hypocrisy that is both objective and incisive. As a drama of the shifting fortunes of a massive rural factory project, The Scar pits community against government, environment against industry and ambition against responsibility.

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“Is everything under control?” demands an ambitious small town Polish Communist official preparing to receive a delegation from Warsaw. At stake is a large fertilizer factory contract that would mean hundreds of jobs for a dirt poor rural province. But winning the contract creates more problems than it solves as politicians, environmentalists, displaced citizens and journalists alike inadvertently plumb the gap between rigid state socialism and the anarchy of human nature. Builder turned reluctant factory director Stefan Bednarz’s “quiet conscience” becomes the moral center of a sprawling, Altmanesque human tapestry of greed, petty conspiracy and self-righteous grudge holding.

Whether in the adversarial relationship between Bednarz and his journalist nemesis, the mother-hen buffoonery of Bednarz’s local political counterparts or the selfish flailing of Communist Party underlings and workers, The Scar is a trenchant and sensitive portrait of a society hopelessly mired in its own ideology.

DVD Extras:
* Interview with Cinematographer Slawomir Idziak
* Interview with Cinematographer Slawomir Idziak
* Interview with Filmmaker Agnieszka Holland
* Interview with Sound Engineer Michal Zarnecki
* “Concert of Requests” (B&W, 1967, 15 min) - A short film by Kieslowski in Polish with English subtitles
* Kieslowski Filmography Theatrical Trailer
* A Kieslowski Trailer Gallery
* Optional English subtitles
* Enhanced for 16x9 TVs

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"Suffused with Kieslowski's dry wit and intelligence," (Jonathan Rosenbaum, The Chicago Reader), Camera Buff (1979) is Krzysztof Kieslowski’s (The Double Life of Veronique) tragi-comic meditation on filmmaking. Self-reflexive by nature, this fictional film about a documentary filmmaker is commonly referred to as a watershed in Kieslowski’s transition from documentary to fiction filmmaking. “I’m frightened of real tears,” Kieslowski once said. “In fact, I don’t even know if I have the right to photograph them.”

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This ethical question becomes the epicenter of the life of Filip Mosz (Jerzy Stuhr – Kieslowski’s Three Colors: White), the main character in Camera Buff. Happily married and economically stable, the film’s humble hero buys an 8mm film camera with the intention of filming his newborn child—and capturing the moment of attainment of a lifelong dream. But when a powerhouse director of the town’s local factory recruits him to film an important board meeting, Filip's fascination with the medium grows into passionate dedication. At the command of a larger film unit and networking to enrich his career, Filip eventually reaches an irreconcilable deadlock with his wife, friends and the director who previously supported his cinematic ambitions.

Camera Buff mirrors Kieslowski’s complex relationship with “reality” and its possible representations. Through Filip’s often comic need to capture “life as it is,” Kieslowski denounces the myth of objectivity at the base of cinéma vérité. More than implying that there is no engagement with reality that can leave it untouched, Kieslowski suggests that the very act of seeing is in itself a moment of creation.

DVD Extras:
* Interview with Filmmaker Krzysztof Zanussi
* Interview with Filmmaker Agnieszka Holland
* Interview with Kieslowski Scholar Annette Insdorf
* “Talking Heads” (B&W, 1980, 16 min) - A short documentary by Kieslowski in Polish with English subtitles
* Kieslowski Filmography
* Theatrical Trailer
* A Kieslowski Trailer Gallery
* Optional English subtitles

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Strikingly modernist and compulsively watchable, European film master Krzysztof Kieslowski's 1981 Blind Chance has profoundly influenced cinematic storytelling for nearly two decades. Kieslowski (“Dekalog,” The Double Life of Veronique) blends his trademark passion for character and poetic imagery with a boldly novelistic narrative conceit. Blind Chance transcendently illuminates the intersection of fate, coincidence and choice.

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Facing an unclear future, Witek, an earnest young Polish medical student, chooses to put his education on hold. With his head full of the promising and ominous portents of his new adult life, Witek hurries to catch the last train to Warsaw. But as he races down the platform, Blind Chance blossoms into three successive scenarios in which Witek's catching or missing his train spawns three completely different futures. Whether as an idealistic Communist Party member, an ambivalent dissident or a devoted healer and husband, the young Pole’s destiny is shaped by the unhappy youth threatening to hobble him, the troubled present poised to engulf him and, in Kieslowski’s words, “the powers that meddle with our fate.”

Through three complex lives, actor Boguslaw Linda portrays Witek with an effortless magnetism remarkable even for a Kieslowski film. Actor and director’s commitment and vision succeed in creating three entirely different portraits each as compellingly real as the next. Made on the eve of Communist crackdown in Poland, Blind Chance was suppressed for nearly seven years. Kino is proud to present this underseen masterpiece for the first time in the US on DVD and video.

DVD Extras:
* Interview with Supervisor/Censor Irena Strzakowska
* Interview with Filmmaker Agnieszka Holland
* Interview with Kieslowski Scholar Annette Insdorf
* “Workshop Exercises” (B&W, 1986, 12 min.) - A short film by Marcel Lozinski In Polish with English subtitles
* Kieslowski Filmography
* Theatrical Trailer
* A Kieslowski Trailer Gallery
* Optional English subtitles
* Enhanced for 16x9 TVs

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No End (1984) stands as the “most explicitly political” (Jonathan Rosenbaum, The Chicago Reader) film ever written and directed by filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski (The Double Life of Veronique).

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Seen as the predecessor to Three Colors: Blue (1993), No End also focuses on the story of a woman coping with the sudden death of her husband. But while Blue works as a cinematic utterance of a psychological state, No End exemplifies Kieslowski’s career-long interest on the connections between individual psyche and the politics of collective institutions. In the film, a woman's loss exists in constant dialogue with Poland’s labor turmoil of the 1980s and the formation of the independent trade union “Solidarity.”

Antek was one of the few lawyers willing to take on political cases in a period of enforced martial law. Upon his unexpected death, Antek’s wife Ulla struggles to cope with her grief, but eventually takes on the task of finding another attorney to take over one of her husband’s cases and defend a man jailed for leading a labor strike. After connecting a colleague from Antek’s past with the prisoner’s wife, a series of mysterious signals make Ulla believe that Antek is warning her about the man chosen to replace him.

Featuring a haunting score by long-time collaborator Zbigniew Preisner (Three Colors Trilogy) and riveting performances by its leading cast, Kieslowski creates in No End a moment of mourning for both Ulla and a nation disenchanted with its present and future possibilities.

DVD Extras:
* Interview with actress Grazyna Szapolowska
* Interview with cinema- tographer Jacek Petrycki
* “The Office” (B&W, 1966, 5 min.) A short documentary by Kieslowski In Polish with English subtitles
* Kieslowski Filmography
* Theatrical Trailer
* A Kieslowski trailer gallery
* Optional English subtitles
* Enhanced for 16x9 TVs

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Kino proudly makes Krzysztof Kieslowski's (Blue, White, Red) A Short Film About Killing available for the first time on US home video and DVD. An expansion of and a departure from Episode V of Kieslowski's famed European TV series Decalogue (Episode VI was adapted into A Short Film About Love, also available on Kino DVD), this theatrically released film is a haunting vision of the brutality of modern life and an ethical puzzle pitting random coincidence against irresistible fate. A Short Film About Killing employs a rich arsenal of cinematic imagination to create a persuasive portrait of savagery and redemption. "It's not only an artistic triumph," said The Chicago Tribune, "it's a nerve shredder."

IMDB

Despite occupying three different worlds within a decrepit modern Warsaw, three strangers unknowingly share a parallel destiny. In the shadows of a hellish housing project, a misanthropic cabby lavishes scorn on everyone and everything he sees. On a downtown sidewalk, a young drifter searches for himself in a shop window reflection while hiding his face from the police. Inside a privileged academic cloister, a would-be attorney defends his optimism in an oral bar exam. Through an appalling act of violence, cabby, drifter and lawyer are united in a shocking spectacle of wasted life that defies morality, upends empathy and makes martyrs of monsters.

In A Short Film About Killing, Kieslowski has created a stunning rust-hued world of hard edged irony and sublime humanity while performing a detailed autopsy of a decaying society as barbaric as the crimes it abhors. In fact, Kieslowski's film fed the personal outrage and national debate that would lead to a repeal of Poland's draconian capital punishment statutes.

DVD Extras:
* Interview with Cinematographer Slawomir Idziak
* Interview with Kieslowski collaborator Annette Insdorf
* Interview with film-maker Agnieszka Holland
* Examination of the film by writer Antonin Liehm
* A Night Porter's Point of View (1977, 17 min.) - A short documentary by Krzysztof Kieslowski
* Kieslowski Filmography
* Theatrical Trailer
* A Kieslowski Trailer Gallery
* Optional English subtitles
* Enhanced for 16x9 TVs

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Hailed by the Chicago Tribune as “unique, finely wrought and moving,” Krzysztof Kieslowski’s (The Double Life of Veronique) A Short Film About Love is a film that serves as both an expansion and a re-invention of one of the most powerful episodes in the director’s renowned Decalogue TV series. (A second film adapted from Decalogue, A Short Film About Killing, is also available on Kino DVD). Anticipating themes in his final film Red (Rouge), part III of his renowned Trois Couleurs trilogy, Kieslowski blends reckless romanticism with chilling alienation to produce a courageous and adept examination of human longing.

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Within the confines of a housing project high-rise, orphan teenager Tomek reaches out from his loveless isolation. His voyeuristic scrutiny of the windows in the building next door spawns a romantic fascination with Magda, a beautiful and promiscuous older woman. Fervent gaze heralds hesitant touch as Tomek’s boyish attempts to reach Magda grow in both resourcefulness and success. Face to face with the woman he adores, Tomek confronts his own doubt and the impenetrable mantle of cynicism and disappointment that keeps Magda unreachable from any distance. For Magda, the spiritual beauty that Tomek’s infatuation may awaken within her sets the stage for torment and redemption of Shakespearean dimensions.

For A Short Film About Love, Kieslowski added a newly written ending, altered from that of the Dekalog episode, which restructures the narrative. Never before released on U.S. video or DVD, this human, unconventional film about obsession evolves into a love story of extraordinary tenderness and depth.

DVD Extras:
* Interview with actress Grazyna Szapolowska
* Interview with Kieslowski collaborator Annette Insdorf
* Interview with Emmanuel Finkiel, 2nd Unit Director on Kieslowski’s Trois Couleurs
* Tramway (1966, 5 min.) A short film by Kieslowski, in Polish w/English subt.
* Kieslowski Filmography
* Theatrical Trailer
* A Kieslowski Trailer Gallery
* Optional English subtitles
* Enhanced for 16x9 TVs