Krzysztof Zanussi

Directing

Krzysztof Zanussi

Born

1939-06-17 (87)

Place of birth

Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland

Known for

Directing

Credits

64 titles

From Wikipedia Krzysztof Zanussi, (born 17 June 1939) is a Polish film and theatre director, producer and screenwriter. He is a professor of European film at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland where he conducts a summer workshop. He is also a professor at the Silesian University in Katowice.

Known for

Film credits

2020s · 5 titles

O Papa que Venceu o Comunismo poster
10.0

The documentary tells the story of Karol Wojtyła, Pope John Paul II, with rare footage and exclusive information. Born in Poland under Nazi and Communist occupation, he faced persecution, KGB surveillance, and miraculously survived an assassination attempt, all without ever giving in to fear. Discover how, through his faith in Christ, acts of evangelization in atheist countries, and the use of art and philosophy, John Paul II inspired millions, strengthened the Solidarity movement, and contributed to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

O Papa que Venceu o Comunismo

2025

Pan Olbrychski poster
7.0

Biographical documentary film presenting the silhouette and artistic path of the outstanding actor Daniel Olbrychski. The narrative of the main character is confronted with his colleagues and friends, in contemporary interviews, including: with Krystyna Janda, Jerzy Hoffman, Krzysztof Zanussi, Volker Schlondorff and Adam Michnik. The archival materials will include statements and excerpts from the realization of scenes from Andrzej Wajda's films. The film roles of the main character are intertwined with his private life.

Pan Olbrychski

2025

Dovzhenko. Full of Compromise poster
NR

This film, marking the 130th anniversary of Oleksandr Dovzhenko's birth, reveals the artist's controversial path—from his first attempts at cinema to the creation of masterpieces that became symbols of Ukrainian poetic cinema. The authors show his ability to maneuver between creative ambitions and the political demands of the era, remaining a unique figure in cultural history. 

Dovzhenko. Full of Compromise

2025

No artwork available
1.0

The film was inspired by one of the most important documentaries shot by Krzysztof Kieślowski, Talking Heads (1980). The director asked his interlocutors seemingly simple questions, such as “Who are you?” and “What do you want?”.

Talking Heads 2021

2021

Life is a Thrill poster
5.0

This is a story about an amazing person who devotes his life to his students. Vladimir Fenchenko lit the hearts of hundreds of young filmmakers with love for cinema.

Life is a Thrill

2020

2010s · 7 titles

The Gift poster
NR

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.

The Gift

2019

The Trial: The State of Russia vs Oleg Sentsov poster
3.4

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 ...

The Trial: The State of Russia vs Oleg Sentsov

2017

We Film the People! poster
NR

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.

We Film the People!

2013

Celluloid Man poster
7.0

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.

Celluloid Man

2012

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Granatowy zeszyt

2013

No artwork available
NR

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.

Notes on Life. Edward Zebrowski

2017

No artwork available
NR

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.

Krzysztof Zanussi about his collaboration with Wojciech Kilar

2012

2000s · 6 titles

Life as a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease poster
6.8

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.

Life as a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease

2000

Meeting Andrei Tarkovsky poster
5.2

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.

Meeting Andrei Tarkovsky

2008

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Niepokój

2004

Notes in Lifestyle Margins poster
NR

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.

Notes in Lifestyle Margins

2002

Still Alive: A Film About Krzysztof Kieslowski poster
8.5

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.

Still Alive: A Film About Krzysztof Kieslowski

2006

No artwork available
7.3

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.

Solidarność, Solidarność...

2005

Series credits

Behind the camera

Spoor poster
6.1

A story about Janina Duszejko, an elderly woman, who lives alone in the Klodzko Valley where a series of mysterious crimes are committed. Duszejko is convinced that she knows who (or what) is the murderer, but nobody believes her.

Spoor

2017

Venice 70: Future Reloaded poster
5.0

Made for the Venice Film Festival's 70th anniversary, seventy filmmakers made a short film between 60 and 90 seconds long on their interpretation of the future of cinema.

Venice 70: Future Reloaded

2013

A Year of the Quiet Sun poster
6.5

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...

A Year of the Quiet Sun

1984

A Year of the Quiet Sun poster
6.5

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...

A Year of the Quiet Sun

1984

Life for Life: Maximilian Kolbe poster
6.3

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.

Life for Life: Maximilian Kolbe

1991

Life for Life: Maximilian Kolbe poster
6.3

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.

Life for Life: Maximilian Kolbe

1991

Weekend Stories: The Soul Sings poster
6.5

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.

Weekend Stories: The Soul Sings

1997

Weekend Stories: The Soul Sings poster
6.5

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.

Weekend Stories: The Soul Sings

1997

Life as a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease poster
6.8

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.

Life as a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease

2000

Life as a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease poster
6.8

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.

Life as a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease

2000

Ether poster
5.0

At the end of the 19th century, somewhere in the outskirts of the Russian Empire, a doctor administers a lethal overdose of ether to a young woman – the object of his desire. After getting away with his crime, he finds employment in a fortress, where he continues his experiments with ether to manage pain and manipulate human behaviour. Despite his evilness, it is not too late for his soul to be saved from eternal damnation…

Ether

2018

Ether poster
5.0

At the end of the 19th century, somewhere in the outskirts of the Russian Empire, a doctor administers a lethal overdose of ether to a young woman – the object of his desire. After getting away with his crime, he finds employment in a fortress, where he continues his experiments with ether to manage pain and manipulate human behaviour. Despite his evilness, it is not too late for his soul to be saved from eternal damnation…

Ether

2018

Ether poster
5.0

At the end of the 19th century, somewhere in the outskirts of the Russian Empire, a doctor administers a lethal overdose of ether to a young woman – the object of his desire. After getting away with his crime, he finds employment in a fortress, where he continues his experiments with ether to manage pain and manipulate human behaviour. Despite his evilness, it is not too late for his soul to be saved from eternal damnation…

Ether

2018

Luke poster
7.0

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.

Luke

1991

Weekend Stories: Unwritten Law poster
5.5

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.

Weekend Stories: Unwritten Law

1998

Weekend Stories: Unwritten Law poster
5.5

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.

Weekend Stories: Unwritten Law

1998

Camouflage poster
6.7

A moral conflict between a young assistant and an associate professor arises during a university linguistics camp.

Camouflage

1977

Camouflage poster
6.7

A moral conflict between a young assistant and an associate professor arises during a university linguistics camp.

Camouflage

1977

The Constant Factor poster
7.2

A young man is confronted with corrupt and vindictive colleagues at work and negligent officials at the hospital where his mother is dying. As he searches quixotically for a steadfast moral code by which to live, he suffers from the knowledge of human frailty and our darker inclinations to do harm.

The Constant Factor

1980

The Constant Factor poster
7.2

A young man is confronted with corrupt and vindictive colleagues at work and negligent officials at the hospital where his mother is dying. As he searches quixotically for a steadfast moral code by which to live, he suffers from the knowledge of human frailty and our darker inclinations to do harm.

The Constant Factor

1980

Drowsiness poster
5.9

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.

Drowsiness

2008

From a Far Country poster
4.6

This heroic story follows the life of Karol Wojtyla, a Polish Roman catholic who ascends the throne of St. Peter as Pope John Paul II. As a young boy, Karol is a bright and talented student. Archbishop Sapieha recognizes the very special, moving qualities Karol possesses and encourages him to consider the priesthood. Although determined to study Polish literature, Karol turns to the church; he is ordained and studies in Italy, France, and Belgium. Torn by fear and repression in post-Stalin Eastern Europe, Karol becomes a poisonous thorn in the communists' side. His deer reverence and commitment return him to Poland as Pope John Paul II.

From a Far Country

1981

From a Far Country poster
4.6

This heroic story follows the life of Karol Wojtyla, a Polish Roman catholic who ascends the throne of St. Peter as Pope John Paul II. As a young boy, Karol is a bright and talented student. Archbishop Sapieha recognizes the very special, moving qualities Karol possesses and encourages him to consider the priesthood. Although determined to study Polish literature, Karol turns to the church; he is ordained and studies in Italy, France, and Belgium. Torn by fear and repression in post-Stalin Eastern Europe, Karol becomes a poisonous thorn in the communists' side. His deer reverence and commitment return him to Poland as Pope John Paul II.

From a Far Country

1981

The Unapproachable poster
8.0

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.

The Unapproachable

1982

The Unapproachable poster
8.0

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.

The Unapproachable

1982

The Welts poster
7.0

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.

The Welts

2004

The Supplement poster
6.5

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

The Supplement

2002

The Supplement poster
6.5

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

The Supplement

2002

The Supplement poster
6.5

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

The Supplement

2002

The Structure of Crystal poster
7.1

Two friends who used to study physics together are forced to make tough decisions as their lives take different paths.

The Structure of Crystal

1969

The Structure of Crystal poster
7.1

Two friends who used to study physics together are forced to make tough decisions as their lives take different paths.

The Structure of Crystal

1969

A Woman's Decision poster
5.1

The main character is a bookkeeper, 40, who lives a quiet, uninteresting life with her husband and son of school age. She realizes that soon she won't be needed much at home as the boy grows up and the relationship with her husband crumbles. It's only when an embezzlement is discovered at the office and she stands up to her management, that she realizes life has more to offer. She meets a well-off former classmate, married to an American. Then she meets Jacek and starts contemplating possibilities of a new start. She discovers love for the first time, but turns to old ways rather than to break loose.

A Woman's Decision

1975

A Woman's Decision poster
5.1

The main character is a bookkeeper, 40, who lives a quiet, uninteresting life with her husband and son of school age. She realizes that soon she won't be needed much at home as the boy grows up and the relationship with her husband crumbles. It's only when an embezzlement is discovered at the office and she stands up to her management, that she realizes life has more to offer. She meets a well-off former classmate, married to an American. Then she meets Jacek and starts contemplating possibilities of a new start. She discovers love for the first time, but turns to old ways rather than to break loose.

A Woman's Decision

1975

The Catamount Killing poster
6.9

A banker troubled by both business and personal problems is transferred to a small town. There he meets and seduces an older woman. Together, they decide to pull off a payroll holdup together.

The Catamount Killing

1975

The Catamount Killing poster
6.9

A banker troubled by both business and personal problems is transferred to a small town. There he meets and seduces an older woman. Together, they decide to pull off a payroll holdup together.

The Catamount Killing

1975

Weekend Stories: The Hidden Treasure poster
6.3

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.

Weekend Stories: The Hidden Treasure

2001

Weekend Stories: The Hidden Treasure poster
6.3

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.

Weekend Stories: The Hidden Treasure

2001

Our God's Brother poster
5.6

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

Our God's Brother

1997

Our God's Brother poster
5.6

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

Our God's Brother

1997

Our God's Brother poster
5.6

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

Our God's Brother

1997