Kijowski, Janusz

(1948-)

   One of the leading figures of the Cinema of Distrust, writer-director Kijowski is often credited with coining the phrase "Cinema of Moral Concern." His first feature film, Index (Indeks, 1977, due to censorship released in 1981), introduced a student expelled from a university for defending a politically active colleague. The film portrayed the protagonist who struggles to maintain his moral view during the period of Communist conformity. Similar protagonists were present in Kijowski's next film, Kung-fu (1980). In the 1980s, Kijowski directed a psychological film, Voices (Głosy, 1982), and two political films set among actors, Masquerade (Maskarada, 1986) and The State of Fear (Stan strachu, 1990), the latter dealing with life under martial law. In his best-known film, Warszawa 5703 (1992), a Polish-French-German production featuring an international cast (Lambert Wilson, Julie Delpy, and Hanna Schygulla), Kijowski tells the story of a young Jewish couple escaping through sewers from the Warsaw Ghetto and finding refuge on the Polish side. In recent years, with the exception of Chameleon (Kameleon, 2001), a crime film full of references to Polish political and social life, Kijowski has been acting as a film producer associated with the Irzykowski Film Studio.

   Historical Dictionary of Polish Cinema by Marek Haltof