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Moving Image to Screen Complete Kieslowski Retrospective This Fall
By: Movies News Desk Sep. 16, 2016
In the twenty years since his death at the age of 54 at the height of his powers, Krzysztof Kieslowski's films have become only more relevant and meaningful. Best known for the features The Double Life of Veronique and the Three Colors Trilogy: Blue, White, and Red-corresponding to the ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity-and the television mini-series masterwork Dekalog (The Decalogue), Kieslowski was one of the most important European filmmakers of the 1990s.
Museum of the Moving Image will present the most comprehensive U.S. retrospective of all of the Polish director's features, short films, early documentary work, and a marathon viewing of the Dekalog, from October 7 through November 6, 2016. The series will also include four posthumous works based on Kieslowski's unproduced screenplays.
Krzysztof Kieslowski: A Complete Retrospective is presented in collaboration with the Polish Cultural Institute New York and Polish Film Institute in Warsaw, Poland, with special thanks to TOR Studio, Filmoteka Narodowa, WFDiF, PWSFTviT, TVP and CRF. Among the highlights of the Museum's retrospective are Kieslowski's final films Red, White, and Blue, known as the Three Colors trilogy in 35mm; The Double Life of Veronique, which launched star Irène Jacob's career; Dekalog in the new digital restoration, presented over one weekend; early features including The Scar, Personnel, Camera Buff, Blind Chance, No End; and more. The retrospective also offers a rare opportunity to view approximately twenty documentaries directed by Kieslowski in the 1960s through the 1980s, many of them short films that intimately captured the lives of working people in communist Poland-films which also laid the philosophical and artistic groundwork for Kieslowski's fiction features. Of his move from documentary to fiction, Kieslowski told a Polish newspaper in 1995: "I began with the documentary. I abandoned it because every nonfiction filmmaker ends up realizing one day the boundaries that can't be crossed-those beyond which we risk causing harm to the people we film. That's when we feel the need to make fiction features."SCHEDULE AND DESCRIPTIONS:
All screenings take place in the Sumner M. Redstone Theater or Celeste and Armand Bartos Screening Room at Museum of the Moving Image, 36-01 35 Avenue in Astoria, New York. Tickets are $12 ($9 seniors and students / $7 youth ages 3-17 / free for Museum members at the Film Lover and Kids Premium levels, free for Silver Screen members and above). Advance tickets are available online at movingimage.us. Ticket purchase may be applied toward same-day gallery admission. Where confirmed, screening formats are noted; these will be updated on program webpages.
The Double Life of Veronique (La double vie de Véronique)
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 7, 7:00 P.M.
Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski. 1991, 98 mins. With Irène Jacob, Wladyslaw Kowalski, Halina Gryglaszewska. One of his most beloved films, Kieslowski's international BREAKTHROUGH is a ravishing, mysterious rumination on identity, love, and intuition. Irène Jacob is incandescent as Weronika, a Polish choir soprano, and her double, Veronique, a French music teacher. Unknown to each other, the women share an enigmatic, emotional bond, which Kieslowski cinematically explores with reflections, colors, and movements. Aided by Slawomir Idziak's shimmering cinematography and Zbigniew Preisner's haunting, operatic score, Kieslowski creates one of cinema's most purely metaphysical works. Preceded by Concert of Requests (1967, 16 min. With Ryszard Dembinski, Jerzy Fedorowicz, Ewa Konarska). A couchful of rowdy youths stops by a lake. They drink, play football, and horse around. One of the boys runs after the ball and sees a couple in the bushes. This student film demonstrates the development of a sensitive and singular cinematic vision.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2:00 P.M.
Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski. (Program duration: 92 mins.)
The Office (Urzad) 1966, 5 mins. This satire on bureaucracy and clerical soullessness was shot with a hidden camera at a Social Security office. A queue forms in front of the counter window and the clerk repeats the question: "What have you done in your lifetime?"
Hospital (Szpital) 1977, 21 mins. The camera follows orthopedic surgeons on a 32-hour shift, as instruments fall apart in their hands and the power keeps going out. Kieslowski is as impressed by the perseverance, compassion, and humor of the surgeons as he is by the crumbling Polish hospital.
Workers 1971: Nothing about Us without Us (Robotnicy 1971: Nic o nas bez nas) 1972, 47 mins. In the wake of the deadly strikes of 1970, the downfall of First Secretary Gomulka, and the rise of Edward Gierek, who promised a "new Poland," this film "was intended to portray the workers' state of mind in 1971." (Krzysztof Kieslowski)
I Don't Know (Nie Wiem) 1977, 46 mins. The confession of a man who was the director of a factory in Lower Silesia. "He was a Party member but opposed to the Mafia-like organization of Party members which was active in that factory and region. Those people were stealing and debiting the factory account. He didn't realize that people higher up were involved in the affair. And they finished him off.' (Krzysztof Kieslowski) The Scar (Blizna)
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8, 4:30 P.M.
Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski. 1976, 116 mins. DCP. With Franciszek Pieczka, Mariusz Dmochowski, Jerzy Stuhr. The year is 1970, and an honest Party man is put in charge of the construction of a chemical factory in the small town where he used to live. He aspires to build a place where people can live and work in harmony, but townspeople, irate that the plant is destined for the site of a primevAl Wilderness, quickly put an end to such idealism. Kieslowski's film explores the weakening of ties between people who make the decisions and those who must live with the consequences. Preceded by Slate (1976, 5 mins.). A compilation of out-takes from The Scar.The Calm (Spokoj)
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 9, 4:30 P.M.
Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski. 1976, 82 mins. 16mm. With Jerzy Stuhr, Izabella Olszewska, Jerzy Trela. The first collaboration between Kieslowski and beloved actor Jerzy Stuhr, who co-wrote the dialogue with the director. (They would collaborate similarly on Camera Buff.) After his release from jail, Antoni Gralak realizes that there is no place for him in his family. He leaves his hometown of Krakow and finds work on a building site in Silesia, hoping to finally settle into a peaceful existence. He finds and marries a girl, but things get complicated again when his boss tries to recruit him into underhanded dealings. A strike breaks out, and Gralak finds himself torn between his boss and colleagues. Censored because of its depiction of a strike, the film premiered on TV shortly after the founding of the Solidarity movement. Preceded by UNDERGROUND Passage (1973, 30 mins. With Teresa Budzisz-Krzyzanowska, Andrzej Seweryn, Anna Jaraczowna). Despite its documentary look, this short TV drama dealing with a crisis of values is in one of Kieslowski's earliest narrative films, about a woman who leaves her husband and teaching job in a small town to work as a window dresser in Warsaw. Camera Buff (Amator)
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 9, 7:00 P.M.
Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski. 1979, 112 mins. DCP. Jerzy Stuhr, Malgorzata Zabkowska, Ewa Pokas, Stefan Czyzewski, Jerzy Nowak. A benchmark of 1970s European cinema and a personal examination of the nature of filmmaking, Camera Buff launched Kieslowski's international reputation. A devoted family man buys an 8mm movie camera to record his baby's first years, then starts to film subjects beyond the home. He is enthusiastically appointed the official chronicler of his factory's fifth anniversary, and is soon winning prizes at amateur contests, capturing true reality rather than Party-line spin. With characteristic subtlety Kieslowski traces the transformation of a shy and private man into a conscientious artist stymied by the limits of freedom.Blind Chance (Przypadek)
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14, 7:00 P.M.
Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski. 1981, 120 mins. DCP. With Boguslaw Linda, Tadeusz Lomnicki, Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, Marzena Trybala, Monika Gozdzik. Polish megastar Boguslaw Linda plays a third-year medical student who gets the dean's permission to interrupt his studies and travel to Warsaw. He has to run for his train. Kieslowski shows three possible outcomes based on whether he makes it on time: in one he becomes a Communist party activist, in another he joins the opposition, and in a third, he gets married and lives non-politically. "A man is predestined, as it were, to behave in a certain way regardless of the circumstances. The character in this film finds himself on three different paths, but remains essentially the same throughout." (Krzysztof Kieslowski) Preceded by The Tram (1966, 5 mins. With Maria Janiec, Jerzy Braszka). Kieskowski's student film precursor to Blind Chance. At night, a boy runs and jumps on a tram. There are very few passengers: a worker on his way to work, a pretty girl. The boy, attracted to the girl, tries to make her laugh, then watches her fall asleep. He gets off at his stop, but then has second thoughts. Documentary Shorts II: Polish Lives
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2:00 P.M.
Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski. Program length: 96 mins.
From the City of Lodz (Z miasta Lodzi) 1969, 18 mins. Kieslowski's Lodz Film School thesis film offers impressions of a city of former GLORY now dominated by the textile industry. "A portrait of a town where some people work, others roam around in search of Lord knows what... A town which is full of eccentricities, all sorts of absurd statues and various contrasts.." (Krzysztof Kieslowski)
I Was a Soldier (Bylem Zolnierzem) 1970, 16 mins. Kieslowski interviews soldiers who lost their sight in WWII. "I asked them what they dreamt about at night, and that was the subject of this film." (Krzysztof Kieslowski)
Bricklayer (Murarz) 1973, 18 mins. A bricklayer recalls how, as an activist during the Stalinist era in the mid 1950s, he was encouraged by the Party to become an exemplary worker (Stakhanovite) and move to an office job.
From a Night Porter's Point of View (Z Punktu Widzenia Nocnego Portiera) 1977, 16 mins. A bracing portrait of a factory porter who is a fanatic of strict discipline, a man of borderline fascistic views. Marian Osuch's extremism even extends into his personal life as he tries to control everybody and everything in the BELIEF that rules are more important than people.
Seven Women of Different Ages (Siedem Kobiet w Roznym Wieku) 1978, 15 mins. Subtle portraits of seven female dancers spanning days of the week, from the smallest child taking her first steps in ballet to the eldest ballerina now working as an instructor.
Talking Heads (Gadajace Glowy) 1980, 14 mins. Seventy-nine Poles, aged 7 to 100, answer three questions: When were you born? What are you? What would you like most?
Railway Station (Dworzec) 1980, 13 mins. One of Kieslowski's most celebrated documentaries looks at people in a Warsaw train station with empathy but without romanticism. "We spent about ten nights at this railway station trying to photograph 'lost' people. It's about them." (Krzysztof Kieslowski) No End (Bez konca)
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, 4:30 P.M.
Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski. 1984, 107 mins. DCP. With Grazyna Szapolowska, Maria Pakulnis, Aleksander Bardini, Jerzy Radziwilowicz. It is 1982, and the ghost of a young lawyer observes the world during martial law. A young worker imprisoned for leading a strike is now being defended by an older colleague, a less idealistic lawyer more open to compromise; meanwhile the dead man's widow only realizes after her husband's death how much she loved him. Kieslowski's first collaboration with co-screenwriter Krzysztof Piesiewicz and composer Zbigniew Preisner is narratively inventive and exquisitely mournful, made in the wake of the suppression of Solidarity and the protest movement. Preceded by Refrain (1972, 9 mins.). In this powerful short documentary, grief is turned into a pile of paperwork as a paranoid bureaucracy buries a man even after death.Docufictions: First Love (Pierwsza Milosc) and Curriculum Vitae (Zyciorys)
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, 6:45 P.M.
"Graduating from [film] school I wrote a paper entitled 'Reality and Documentary Film.' I defended the thesis that it is possible to imagine the life of any man as a story. Why think up plots when they exist in life? One only needs to photograph them. So then I tried to make a few films like this." (Krzysztof Kieslowski).
First Love (Pierwsza Milosc) Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1974, 52 mins. A deeply humanist account of a naïve young couple coping with the challenges of an unplanned pregnancy. The camera follows a real girl and boy, still in school at seventeen and eighteen, as they consider and reject the option of an abortion, and then have to deal with responses and repercussions to their decision at home and school, and then manage rising bureaucratic hurdles to marriage, lodging, and income. "There were a lot of manipulations in the film. Otherwise it wouldn't have been possible to make such a film. It is unthinkable to keep the film crew ready 24 hours a day. I had to provoke things..." (Krzysztof Kieslowski)
Curriculum Vitae (Zyciorys) Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1975, 45 mins. A fascinating expansion upon the strategies of First Love. Here the "provocation" is a cross examination between a real-life Party Control Committee and a man accused of inappropriate conduct whose LIFE STORY is a total fiction. "I would never have been allowed to enter a meeting of the Political Bureau. So I made a film on the Party Control Committee. Whatever has to do with the Party Control Committee is true. But what the protagonist brings to it is a fiction." (Krzysztof Kieslowski) Personnel (Personel)
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 16, 4:00 P.M.
Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski. 1975, 70 mins. 16mm. With Juliusz Machulski, Irena Lorentowicz, Wlodzimierz Borunski, Michal Tarkowski. Romek is a sensitive and idealistic young student at a theatrical technical college. Working at his first job in the tailoring workshop of an opera, his illusions are shattered by the harsh realities of backstage bickering, petty jealousies, and corruption. Kieslowski's made-for-TV film is a microcosm, positing, as many of his subsequent films would, the workplace as an arena for moral choice. Preceded by X-Ray (1974, 12 mins.) and Before the Rally (1971, 14 mins.). In X-Ray, Tuberculosis patients speak of their fears and of their wish to return to a normal life. In a place where they seem to lack nothing, there emerges a longing for the drudgery of everyday life away from the sanatorium. Before the Rally illustrates ten days of preparation before leading Polish racing car driver Krzysztof Komornicki races in the 1971 Monte Carlo rally. The technical shortcomings of his Polish Fiat 125 serves as an allegory for the country's industrial and economic problems. A Short Working Day (Krotki dzien pracy)
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 16, 6:30 P.M.
Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski. 1981, 73 mins. 35mm. With Waclaw Ulewicz, Lech Grzmocinski, Tadeusz Bartosik, Elzbieta Kijowska. Based on reportage of the 1976 strike in Radom, which ended with the regional Party Committee headquarters set aflame, Kieslowski's made-for-TV hybrid film merges archival materials with a dramatization of organized opposition during a single day of conflict. Shot during the Solidarity period and finished just before the imposition of martial law in 1981, A Short Working Day was not broadcast until 1996, three months after Kieslowski's death from COMPLICATIONS of heart surgery. Preceded by Factory (1970, 18 mins.) and The Photograph (1968, 31 mins.). Factory is a daring early look at a day in the life of Ursus tractor factory, with footage alternating between laboring workers and a management board meeting. Due to a shortage of equipment and parts, the factory cannot meet its production quota, leading to an endless bureaucratic roundelay. Made for Polish TV and Kieslowski's first professional project out of film school, The Photograph is a documentary in which director and crew search for two young boys featured in a photograph taken after the liberation of Warsaw. Though happy in the photo, the now fully grown men present a very different picture two decades on. A Short Film about Killing and A Short Film about Love
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21, 7:00 P.M.
A Short Film about Killing. Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski. 1987, 84 mins. DCP. With Miroslaw Baka, Krzysztof Globisz, Jan Tesarz, Zbigniew zapasiewicz. After a youth randomly and brutally murders a taxi driver, an idealistic young attorney is assigned to defend the murderer. The film, which arrived like a rock through the window amid Poland's debate on capital punishment, is one of the most powerful statements on the death penalty ever committed to film. Kieslowski's masterpiece is shocking not only for the graphic brutality of both its murder and execution scenes, but for its daring condemnation of "crime in the name of the law."
A Short Film about Love (Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski. 1988, 86 mins. DCP. With Grazyna Szapolowska, Olaf Lubaszenko, Stefania Iwinska). A sublime cinematic voyeur tale that stands alongside Rear Window and Peeping Tom, Kieslowski's film follows a sensitive and guileless young man who is obsessed with a beautiful woman living in the opposite building. Watching her through a telescope, he grows jealous of the woman's lover and sabotages their affair. When Tomek reveals his deceit and confesses his love, the woman initiates a cruel game of her own. Dekalog (The Dekalogue)
All ten episodes of Dekalog (The Decalogue) will screen over two days, October 22 and 23. A discounted pass ($35) is available for those who want to attend all Dekalog screenings.Dekalog 1 & 2
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1:00 P.M.
Dekalog 1: I Am The Lord Thy God. Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski. 1988, 53 mins. Restored DCP. With Henryk Baranowski, Wojciech Klata, Maja Komorowska, Artur Barcis. In taking the First Commandment as their starting point, Kieslowski and Piesiewicz address the question of God's existence and man's creation of false idols. Krzysztof, a scientist, introduces his beloved little son, Pawel, to the mysteries of the personal computer, a machine which he believes to be infallible. It is winter, and Pawel, anxious to try out a new pair of skates, asks his father if he can go out to the local pond which has just frozen over. They consult the computer and determine with great precision that the ice will hold the boy's weight. But an unpredictable convergence of meteorological factors is about to threaten the scientist's faith.
Dekalog 2: Thou Shalt Not Take the Name of Thy Lord God in Vain. Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski. 1988. 57 mins. Restored DCP. With Krystyna Janda, Aleksander Bardini, Olgierd Lukaszewicz, Artur Barcis. The head of an intensive care unit is a lonely, older man who enjoys a stable life and the faded memories of his youth. His tranquility is abruptly shaken when the fate of an unborn child is unexpectedly placed in his hands. The expectant mother (Krystyna Janda) is a young violinist whose husband is in critical condition in that very ward. But the child was fathered by another. She has decided that if her husband lives, she will have an abortion, and if he dies, she will have the baby. Thus it is the doctor's prognosis that will decide.Dekalog 3 & 4
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22, 3:30 P.M.
Dekalog 3: Honor the Sabbath Day (Decalogue 3). Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski. 1988, 56 mins. Restored DCP. With Daniel Olbrychski, Maria Pakulnis, Joanna Szczepkowska, Artur Barcis. It is Christmas Eve, and a young man, Janusz, is celebrating with his wife and child. Suddenly his ex-lover shows up at his doorstep with a favor to ask, and before long they're wandering together through the city, with Janusz toggling between impatience, guilt, desire, and reckoning with some difficult truths about their relationship.
Dekalog 4: Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother (Decalogue 4). Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski. 1988, 55 mins. Restored DCP. With Adrianna Biedrzynska, Janusz Gajos, Artur Barcis, Aleksandra Bardini. Anka has had a close relationship with her father ever since her mother died when she was little. Now a beautiful young woman, she discovers a letter from her mother, written on her deathbed that calls her father's paternity into question. With THE FAMILY tie binding father and daughter seemingly suspended, impulses and emotions that each have carefully buried suddenly start rising to the surface.Dekalog 5 & 6
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1:00 P.M.
Dekalog 5: Thou Shalt Not Kill. Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski. 1988, 57 mins. Restored DCP. With Miroslaw Baka, Krzysztof Globisz, Jan Tesarz, Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, Barbra Dziekan-Wajda. After a youth randomly and brutally murders a taxi-driver, an idealistic young attorney is assigned to defend the murderer. Strikingly photographed by Slawomir Idziak and ingeniously conceived as a moral diptych with co-screenwriter Krzysztof Piesiewicz (there are no protracted courtroom scenes, no character psychology), Kieslowski's masterpiece is shocking not only for the graphic brutality of both its murder and execution scenes, but for its daring condemnation of "crime in the name of the law." Kieslowski expanded upon this episode for the feature A Short Film about Killing.
Dekalog 6: Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery. Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski. 1988. 58 mins. Restored DCP. With Grazyna Szapolowski, Olaf Lubaszenko, Stefania Iwinska, Artur Barcis. Kieslowski's film follows a sensitive and guileless nineteen-year-old named Tomek who's become obsessed with a beautiful woman living in the building opposite of his in their shared apartment complex. Watching her through a telescope, he grows jealous of the woman's lover and sabotages their affair. When Tomek reveals his deceit and confesses his love, the woman initiates a cruel game of her own. Kieslowski expanded upon this episode for the feature A Short Film about Love.Dekalog 7 & 8
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 23, 3:30 P.M.
Dekalog 7: Thou Shalt Not Steal. Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski. 1988, 55 mins. Restored DCP. With Anna Polony, Maja Barelkoska, Wiadyslaw Kowalski, Boguslaw Linda, Artur Barcis. "Can you steal your own property?" In Kieslowski's complicated ethical gambit, the "property" in question turns out to be a child caught in a custody battle between a mother and grandmother. Majka abducts her six-year-old sister, Ania, and heads to the woods, challenging everyone to work out what should, could, and can never be done.
Dekalog 8: Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness. Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski. 1988, 55 mins. Restored DCP. With Maria Koscialkowska, Teresa Marczewska, Artur Barcis, Tadeusz Lomnicki. In this most troubling of all of Kieslowski's moral provocations, an ethics professor, is forced to confront her wartime refusal to help a Jewish girl, allegedly because she didn't want to have to tell a lie. Yet things are not quite what they seem, as her honesty may have saved the lives of countless others-or perhaps that is just what she was led to believe.Dekalog 9 & 10
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 23, 6:30 P.M.
Dekalog 9: Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Wife. Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski. 1988, 58 mins. Restored DCP. With Ewa Blaszczyk, Piotr Machalica, Artur Barcis, Jan Jankowski. A heart surgeon not yet 40, Roman learns he is incurably impotent and assumes that his marriage is ruined. When his loving wife insists on staying together, Roman suggests that she take a lover, only to become obsessively jealous. He catches his wife in the act. Even after hearing reassurances, and deciding together to adopt a child, his self-pity drives him to consider taking his own life. Tonally straddling the line between comedy and tragedy, Kieslowski questions the very basis of marriage, and thus what really constitutes adultery.
Dekalog 10: Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Goods. Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski. 1988, 57 mins. Restored DCP. With Jerzy Stuhr, Zbigniew Zamachowski, Henryk Bista, Olaf Lubaszenko. A man dies, leaving a valuable stamp collection to his two sons, Jerzy and Artur. Although they know very little about stamps, when they learn of the collection's value their interest spikes. Gradually, this interest takes on an unhealthy intensity. Upon learning that one very rare stamp is needed to complete a valuable series, Jerzy elects to donate his kidney in order to broker a deal.The Three Colors Trilogy
Made during the dawn of the formation of the European Union, these three world-renowned feature films work separately and as a trilogy, exploring everyday contemporary implications of the French Revolution's three concepts, as represented on the country's French flag: Liberty (Blue), Equality (White), and Fraternity (Red). "When you deal with these ideas practically, you do not know how to live with them. Do people really want liberty, equality, fraternity?" (Krzysztof Kieslowski)Three Colors: Blue (Trois Couleurs: Bleu)
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28, 7:00 P.M.
Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski. 1993, 98 mins. 35mm. With Juliette Binoche, Benoît Régent, Florence Pernel, Charlotte Véry, Emmanuelle Riva. In the trilogy's devastating first film, Juliette Binoche gives a tour de force performance as Julie, a woman reeling from the tragic death of her husband and young daughter. But Blue is more than just a blistering study of grief; it is also a hypnotic, immersive tale of liberation, as Julie attempts to free herself from the past while confronting truths about the life of her late husband, a composer. Shot in sapphire tones by Slawomir Idziak, and set to an extraordinary operatic score by Zbigniew Preisner.Three Colors: White (Trois Couleurs: Blanc)
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 30, 4:30 P.M.
Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski. 1994, 90 mins. 35mm. With Zbigniew Zamachowski, Julie Delpy, Janusz Gajos, Jerzy Stuhr. The most playful and earthiest of the Three Colors films follows the adventures of Karol Karol (Zamachowski), a Polish immigrant living in France. The hapless hairdresser leaves Paris for his native Warsaw when his sexually frustrated wife (Delpy) sues him for divorce and then frames him for arson after setting her own salon ablaze. Penniless and set adrift, Karol tries to put his life back together while dreaming up an elaborate strategy for revenge. This underrated film manages to be both darkly comedic about the economic inequalities of Eastern and Western Europe and ingeniously profound about the power of twisted love.Three Colors: Red (Trois Couleurs: Rouge)
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 30, 7:00 P.M.
Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski. 1994, 95 mins. 35mm. With Irène Jacob, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Frederique Feder, Jean-Pierre Lorit, Samuel Leginan. Kieslowski closes his trilogy in grand fashion, with an incandescent meditation on fate and chance starring Irène Jacob as a sweet-souled yet somber runway model in Geneva whose life intersects with that of a bitter retired judge, played by Jean-Louis Trintignant. Meanwhile, just down the street, a seemingly unrelated story of jealousy and BETRAYAL unfolds. Red is an intimate look at forged connections and a bracing final statement from a filmmaker at the height of his powers.Big ANIMAL (Duze zwierze)
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2:00 PM
Dir. Jerzy Stuhr. 2000, 73 mins. With Jerzy Stuhr, Anna Dymna, Dominika Bednarczyk. A respectable bank clerk appears in the streets of his town in the company of a camel. The residents are astonished yet welcoming. Gradually, however, their friendliness turns into hostility. Written in 1973, the script was intended to be the feature debut of Krzysztof Kieslowski, but due to protests from the authorities at the time, it was never filmed. It was later discovered in Wiesbaden in 1998 by Janusz Morgenstern, who suggested that Stuhr direct it.Heaven (Niebo)
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 4:30 PM
Dir. Tom Tykwer. 2002, 97 mins. 35mm. With Cate Blanchett, Giovanni Ribisi, Remo Girone. Based on a screenplay written by Kieslowski and frequent collaborator, Krzysztof Piesiewicz, Heaven was to be the first installment of the Polish director's next Dante-inspired trilogy had he not died in 1996. Enter Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run), who brings his signature kinetic flair to a story about an aggrieved woman seeking to avenge her husband's death.Hell (L'enfer)
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 4:00 PM
Dir. Danis Tanovic. 2005, 102 mins. With Emmanuelle Béart, Karin Viard, Marie Gillain. Academy Award-winning director Danis Tanovic (No Man's Land) picks up where Tom Tykwer left off, helming the second installment of Kieslowski's unproduced Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory trilogy. After a horrific incident sends their father to prison and renders their mother a wheelchair-bound mute, sisters Sophie (Beart), Celine (Viard), and Anne (Gillain) see their lives turned upside down, and their family's dark past returns with a vengeance.Hope (Nadzieja) (also released as Purgatory)
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 6:30 PM
Dir. Stanislaw Mucha. 2007, 101 mins. 35mm. With Rafal Fudalej, Kamilla Baar, Wojciech Pszoniak. Stanislaw Mucha's Nadzieja is the last film in a trilogy from Kieslowski and screenwriter Krzysztof Piesiewicz, after Tom Tykwer's Heaven and Danis Tanovic's Hell. The three films represent not only the Dantesque concepts of heaven, hell, and purgatory but also the Christian ideals of love, faith, and hope. In the story of Franciszek, an angelic youth bent on forcing an art thief to return a stolen religious painting, it becomes clear that the hope for redemption (which is what purgatory is all about) is not as straightforward as it seems; every deed done to make amends may cause irreparable collateral damage.
Museum of the Moving Image (movingimage.us) advances the understanding, enjoyment, and appreciation of the art, history, technique, and technology of film, television, and digital media. In its stunning facilities-acclaimed for both its accessibility and bold design-the Museum presents exhibitions; screenings of significant works; discussion programs featuring actors, directors, craftspeople, and business leaders; and education programs which serve more than 50,000 students each year. The Museum also houses a significant collection of moving-image artifacts.
Hours: Wednesday-Thursday, 10:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Friday, 10:30 to 8:00 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, 11:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.Museum Admission: $15 adults; $11 senior citizens (ages 65+) and students (ages 18+) with ID; $7 youth (ages 3-17). Children under 3 and Museum members are admitted free. Admission to the galleries is free on Fridays, 4:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Film Screenings: Friday evenings, Saturdays and Sundays, and as scheduled. Unless otherwise noted, tickets are $12 adults / $9 students and seniors / $7 youth (ages 3-17) / free for Museum members at the Film Lover and MoMI Kids Premium levels and above. Advance purchase is available online. Ticket purchase may be applied toward same-day admission to the Museum's galleries.
Location: 36-01 35 Avenue (at 37 Street) in Astoria.
Subway: M (weekdays only) or R to Steinway Street. Q (weekdays only) or N to 36 Avenue.
Program Information: Telephone: 718 777 6888; Website: movingimage.us
Membership: movingimage.us/support/membership or 718 777 6877
Videos