Poland, 1972, 10 min, Polish, English and Hebrew Subtitles
The bureaucracy in the office of a town funeral parlor, with close attention to the clerks: pictures of the dead that are torn from their identity cards, requests, approvals, official seals, the prices of the coffins according to the wood and the lining material.
In the shadow of death the routine and the chatter go on.
FROM THE CITY OF LODZ
Poland, 1969, 17 min, Polish, English and Hebrew Subtitles
This is the film for which Kieslowski graduated from Film School. With much patience and minimal intrusion, he observes via his camera, children playing, female workers at the big textile factory, the stormy struggle against the cancellation of the town mandolin orchestra. He passes along the streets and houses, and is present at a teary retirement ceremony for one of the long serving factory workers.
BRICKLAYER
Poland, 1973, 16 min, Polish, English and Hebrew Subtitles
The story of a party activist that reached greatness, then, as a result of the events of October ''56, quit and became a brick layer. Kieslowski follows him during the May Day celebrations; getting up in the morning at his home, and later documenting him at the march. Alongside the impressive footage taken straight from the propaganda films, we hear the bitter stories of the bricklayer, who sobered up to the slogans he once swore by in his youth.
FROM A NIGHT''S PORTER POINT OF VIEW
Poland, 1977, 16 min, Polish, English and Hebrew Subtitles
This is the only documentary in which Kieslowski chooses an antihero. A factory guard who is cruel and fanatical in his strictness with anyone who happens to cross his path: young couples on a park bench, fishermen going to sea without a license, workers who didn’t stamp their cards in the entrance to the factory – and he recounts the incidents with great pride.
Kieslowski was concerned that his protagonist would be harmed, and so prevented the film from being screened on TV for many years.
I WAS A SOLDIER
Poland, 1970, 16 min, Polish, English and Hebrew Subtitles
An amazingly stylish film about five ex soldiers who were blinded in war and speak about their blindness, their dreams, their memories, the moment they realized they had lost their sight, and their rationalization that, "The war is to blame, obviously".
X-RAY
Poland, 1974, 13 min, Polish, English and Hebrew Subtitles
Kieslowski returns to the sanatorium where his father died from Tuberculosis when he was still a child. The patients tell him about the sudden change in their lives due to being hospitalized there, about the isolation and the difficult separation from society, and about the uncertainty of their recovery and a full return to life.
All this sadness is contrasted by the beautiful landscape surrounding them.
TALKING HEADS
Poland, 1980, 14 min, Polish, English and Hebrew Subtitles
This is a kind of street survey that Kieslowski edited in chronological order, starting with a one year old infant and ending with a one hundred year old woman. In it he asks every participant to present themselves and to answer the question, "What do you want from life?" Everyone is filmed in close-up, and so he creates a collective portrait of world views, changing over personal and public time.
