Editing Krzysztof Kieślowski (section)

=== 1975–1988: Polish film career ===
His first non-documentary feature, ''[[Personnel (film)|Personnel]]'' (1975), was made for television and won him first prize at the [[Mannheim Film Festival]]. Both ''Personnel'' and his next feature, ''[[The Scar (1976 film)|The Scar]]'' (''Blizna''), were works of [[social realism]] with large casts: ''Personnel'' was about technicians working on a stage production, based on his early college experience, and ''The Scar'' showed the upheaval of a small town by a poorly planned industrial project. These films were shot in a documentary style with many nonprofessional actors; like his earlier films, they portrayed everyday life under the weight of an oppressive system, but without overt commentary. ''[[Camera Buff]]'' (''Amator'', 1979) (which won the grand prize at the [[11th Moscow International Film Festival]])<ref name="Moscow1979">{{cite web|url=http://www.moscowfilmfestival.ru/miff34/eng/archives/?year=1979 |title=11th Moscow International Film Festival (1979) |access-date=18 January 2013 |work=MIFF |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140403102012/http://www.moscowfilmfestival.ru/miff34/eng/archives/?year=1979 |archive-date= 3 April 2014 }}</ref> and ''[[Blind Chance]]'' (''Przypadek'', 1981) continued along similar lines, but focused more on the ethical choices faced by a single character rather than a community. During this period, Kieślowski was considered part of a loose movement with other Polish directors of the time, including [[Janusz Kijowski]], [[Andrzej Wajda]], and [[Agnieszka Holland]], called the [[Cinema of moral anxiety]]. His links with these directors, Holland in particular, caused concern within the Polish government, and each of his early films was subjected to [[censorship]] and enforced re-shooting/re-editing, if not banned outright. For example, ''Blind Chance'' was not released domestically until 1987, almost six years after it had been completed.

''[[No End (film)|No End]]'' (''Bez końca'', 1984) was perhaps his most clearly political film, depicting political trials in Poland during martial law, from the unusual point of view of a lawyer's ghost and his widow. At the time it was harshly criticized by both the government, dissidents, and the church.<ref name=":0" /> Starting with ''No End'', Kieślowski closely collaborated with two people, the composer [[Zbigniew Preisner]] and the trial lawyer [[Krzysztof Piesiewicz]], whom Kieślowski met while researching political trials under martial law for a planned documentary on the subject. Piesiewicz co-wrote the screenplays for all of Kieślowski's subsequent films.<ref name=":0" /> Preisner is best known for collaborating with Kieślowski on the scores for the Three Colors trilogy.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Greiving |first=Tim |title=Under the Sign of Sadness: Zbigniew Preisner's Three Colors Scores |url=https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8063-under-the-sign-of-sadness-zbigniew-preisners-three-colors-scores |access-date=2023-02-22 |website=The Criterion Collection |language=en}}</ref>

Preisner provided the musical score for ''No End'' and most subsequent of Kieślowski's films and often plays a prominent part. Many of Preisner's pieces are referred to and discussed by the films' characters as being the work of the (fictional) Dutch composer "Van den Budenmayer".<ref name="oxford">{{cite news|last=Abrahamson |first=Patrick |title=Kieślowski's Many Colours |newspaper=Oxford University Student |date=2 June 1995 |url=http://www.musicolog.com/kieslowski_manycolours.asp |access-date=19 May 2012}}</ref>

''[[Dekalog]]'' (1988), a series of ten short films set in a Warsaw tower block, each nominally based on one of the [[Ten Commandments]], was created for Polish television with funding from [[West Germany]]; it is now one of the most critically acclaimed film cycles of all time. Co-written by Kieślowski and Piesiewicz, the ten one-hour-long episodes had originally been intended for ten different directors, but Kieślowski found himself unable to relinquish control over the project and directed all episodes himself. Episodes five and six were released internationally in a longer form as ''[[A Short Film About Killing]]'' and ''[[A Short Film About Love]]'' respectively. Kieślowski had also planned to shoot a full-length version of Episode 9 under the title ''A Short Film About Jealousy'',<ref>{{Cite book|title=Krzysztof Kieslowski: Interviews|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|year=2016|isbn=978-1626745742|editor-last=Bernard|editor-first=Renata|editor-last2=Woodward|editor-first2=Steven}}</ref> but exhaustion eventually prevented him from making what would have been his thirteenth film in less than a year.