Camerabuff [Amator]

Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland, 1979, 112 minutes

Filip buys an 8mm movie camera to capture the very first moments in life of his new-born child. Because he's the only one with a camera, he's nominated by his boss for an offical photographer of an event at his workplace. But then Filip experiences his first artistic doubts and his passion leads to a breakdown of his family and friendships.

This brilliant early Kieslowski (Three Colours trilogy, A Short Film About Killing) film asks many important questions about the life of a filmmaker and shows the reality of life in the communistic Poland. Filip has to make difficult choices between the reality and the "the reality of the Party". This film won the award for the best film at the Moscow Film Festival in 1980 and to avoid censorship it was named "a socialist comedy". Thanks God, it's far from dull soc-realistic films and Newsreels from the period. It's a great and universal film which doesn't lose its values even 25 years after being made and 15 years after the fall of communism in Poland.

Review by Jan Naszewski
Written for EUFS Programme Spring 2005