Krzysztof Kie?lowski

Krzysztof Kie?lowski (June 27, 1941, Warsaw – March 13, 1996, Warsaw) was an influential Polish film director and screenwriter, known internationally for his film cycles Three Colors and The Decalogue.

Documentaries

Kie?lowski's early documentaries focused on the everyday lives of city dwellers, workers, and soldiers. Though he was not an overtly political filmmaker, he soon found that attempting to depict Polish life accurately brought him into conflict with the authorities. His television film Workers '71, which showed workers discussing the reasons for the mass strikes of 1970, was only shown in a drastically censored form.

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After Workers '71, he turned his eye on the authorities themselves in Curriculum Vitae, a film that combined documentary footage of Politburo meetings with a fictional story about a man under scrutiny by the officials. Though Kie?lowski believed the film's message was anti-authoritarian, he was criticized by his colleagues for cooperating with the government in its production.

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Kie?lowski later said that he abandoned documentary filmmaking due to two experiences: the censorship of Workers '71, which caused him to doubt whether truth could be told literally under an authoritarian regime, and an incident during the filming of Station (1981) in which some of his footage was nearly used as evidence in a criminal case. He decided that fiction not only allowed more artistic freedom, but could portray everyday life more truthfully.

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