Maja Komorowska

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.

On September 1st, 1939, Nazi Germany invades Poland, unleashing World War II. On September 17th, the Soviet Red Army crosses the border. The Polish army, unable to fight on two fronts, is defeated. Thousands of Polish men, both military and government officials, are captured by the invaders. Their fate will only be known several years later.

In this mixture of fiction and documentary Krzysztof Zanussi invites a number of Poland’s great actors—Maja Komorowowska, Daniel Olbrychski, and Jan Nowicki—to "revisit" characters they played in the director's earlier works.

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.

Wealthy merchant Stanislaw Wokulski falls tragically in love with beautiful yet vain Izabela Lecka. His unfulfilled love leads to many foolish decisions sealing his fate.

A biology professor, Adam enters a hospital for observation. He is a loner and a serious-minded man, who dislikes any display of emotions. He spends three months in the hospital while being tested. After observing patients and hospital routines around him from a distance, he learns that he will need a kidney transplant. Meanwhile his personal and professional life is falling apart: he refuses his wife's offer to donate the kidney for him; the scientific problem he was working on has been solved elsewhere. In the end Adam cracks under the prolonged pressure, waiting for the sound of an ambulance bringing a moribund patient whose kidney may be used for the transplant.

In Warsaw in 1980, the Communist Party sends disgruntled radio reporter Winkel to Gdańsk to dig up dirt on the shipyard strikers - particularly on Maciek Tomczyk, an independent labour union leader whose father was killed in the December 1970 protests. Posing as sympathetic, Winkel interviews the people surrounding Tomczyk, including his detained wife, Agnieszka.

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...

On the eve of the Day of the Dead, among mysterious old rituals of the Vilnius region, ghosts of the past and present start to appear.

An Uruguayan diplomat brings his new wife with him on a business trip to Poland in the summer immediately preceding the outbreak of World War II.

During the German occupation of a small Polish town, Franciszek Kłos, a lowly local policeman, will stop at nothing to become a Volksdeutsche. Eager to prove his loyalty, he zealously carries out the occupiers' orders. What begins as administrative compliance soon escalates when he commits his first murder of a fellow Pole. Condemned to death by the Polish underground, Kłos outwardly shrugs off the sentence while quietly drowning his growing fear in alcohol. As his inhibitions crumble, he descends deeper into violence—participating in the roundup and execution of hidden Jews, and earning a reputation for brutality even among the SS.

Kaytek, an unusually stubborn twelve-year-old, is brought up by his grandma and dad. One day, the troublemaker discovers that he’s got supernatural powers, which completely take over his life.

Inspired by true events, a story of a blind grand piano genius. As a child Mietek loses his sight. His mother places him in the care of the nuns in Laski. At the centre for the blind the boy discovers that music may be his way of seeing the world again and of describing it. Mietek goes on to become a brilliant classical pianist. Once he discovers jazz music, though, he has only one goal left: to become the best jazz pianist in Poland. He is more and more successful, not only in Poland but around the world. He wins the prestigious Montreux Jazz Festival. Unexpectedly, a charismatic vocalist, Zuza, walks into his life. This meeting will change it forever.

Krzysztof, a semantics professor and computer hobbyist, is raising his young son, Paweł, to look to science for answers, while Irena, Paweł’s aunt, lives a life rooted in faith. Over the course of one day, both adults are forced to question their belief systems.

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.

Young seminary student Franziskus has been ceremonially ordained. He wants to escape the harshness and injustice of the world and devote himself to the service of God in the quiet seclusion of a monastery. He is also hoping to forget the beautiful lady Aurelie, whose life he saved in a flooded brook and with whom he spent an amorous night. He knows that her father would never allow her to marry him. But the devil dressed in a monk's habit and under the name Viktorin intervenes in Franziskus's destiny and attempts to lead him astray. To do so he first uses the diabolical elixirs kept at the monastery as a rare relic. When the young monk gets expelled from the monastery, Viktorin prepares another trap with the help of Aurelie's stepmother Euphemie.

The story of a young couple who abandon city life and move to the countryside.

"Budapest Tales" is about a group of people (consisting of Szabo regular Andras Balint along with Ildiko Bansagi and Karoly Kovacs) who find a broken down tram while trying to go to the city. The people band together and try to get the tram back on the train tracks and head towards the city. Along this journey the passengers encounter many people who join them on the tram. What started out as only a handful of people has now turned into a small village. As the people travel on to the city each person takes on certain roles and through the course of time these roles will change. Some people fall in love, others out of love, and a few even die. But life goes on. The people keep the tram going hoping to reach Budapest.

Difficulty of human relations in a 3-cornered tale: a neurotic woman, idealistic young man and his mother. Tomek is a clean-cut, high-minded geography student. He lives with his mother Zofia, a sensitive, practicing Catholic, like her son. When he meets Julia, a depressed woman older than he, he first tries to comfort her, then invites her to stay with him and his mother. Tomek makes a trip to West Berlin to visit his well-off father. He refuses to take money from him and looks for work as a house painter. Julia ends up in a rest home for treatment, while Tomek is trying to make their relationship work.

Set in the late '20s. A thirtyish young man, who heads a small factory, faints at the funeral of a close friend. He decides to go home to his aunt and uncle for a while, but gets involved with a family of five women who had been in love with him at one time though he had apparently loved only one, who, unknown to him, has died since his departure. The women are mainly disillusioned with life or estranged from husbands while the youngest has a crush on him.

Set at the turn of the century, the story concerns a Polish poet living in Cracow who has decided to marry a peasant girl. The wedding is attended by a heterogenous group of people from all strata of Polish society, who dance, get drunk and lament Poland's 100-year-long division under Russia, Prussia, and Austria. The bridegroom, a painter friend, and a journalist each in turn is confronted with spectres of Polish past.

Maidens and Widows is an epic tale of a hundred years of Polish history from the perspective of women, the titular maidens and widows. Set against the backdrop of turbulent historical events.

A middle-aged man sets out on a symbolic journey through past, present, and future to learn why an old friend committed suicide, and learns much about his own life along the way.

Jerry arrives in New York alone to escape his painful divorce and, penniless, meets Giselle, a free-spirited dancer with unfulfilled dreams. A single phone call sparks a passionate romance, but their love is tested by shifting affections and the lingering presence of Jerry’s estranged wife, turning their affair into a crowded triangle.

The Ten Commandments, exact and uncompromising, literally cast in stone, continues to provide a source of moral conflict in contemporary society. In the ten part collection of films, The Decalogue, Krzysztof Kieślowski examines the dilemma of fundamental sin in the lives of ordinary Warsaw citizens.

An epic tale of a hundred years of Polish history from the perspective of women, the titular maidens and widows. Set against the backdrop of turbulent historical events.

A three-part Austrian television film about the life of composer Franz Schubert. The title of the film is a quote from Erstarung (Immobilization), the fourth song in Schubert's song cycle Winterreise (Winter Journey).