A work in constant progress (and occasional regress).
Alias:
Zbigniew Antoni Kowalski
Zigniew Preisner
Birthplace:
Bielsko-Biala, Slaskie, Poland
Born:
May 20, 1955
Zbigniew Preisner (born 20 May 1955) is a Polish film score composer, best known for his work with film director Krzysztof Kieślowski. Preisner is best known for the music composed for the films directed by fellow Pole Krzysztof Kieślowski. His Song for the Unification of Europe, based on the Greek text of 1 Corinthians 13, is attributed to a character in Kieślowski's Three Colors: Blue and plays a dominating role in the story. His music for Three Colors: Red includes a setting of Polish and French versions of a poem by Wisława Szymborska, a Polish Nobel Prize-winning poet. After working with Kieślowski on Three Colors: Blue, Preisner was hired by the producer Francis Ford Coppola to write the score for The Secret Garden, directed by Polish director Agnieszka Holland. Although Preisner is most closely associated with Kieślowski, he has collaborated with several other directors, winning a César in 1996 for his work on Jean Becker's Élisa. He has won a number of other awards, including another César in 1994 for Three Colors: Red, and the Silver Bear from the 47th Berlin International Film Festival 1997 for The Island on Bird Street. He was nominated for Golden Globe awards for his scores for Three Colors: Blue (1993) and At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1991). In 1998, Requiem for My Friend, Preisner's first large scale work not written for film, premiered. It was originally intended as a narrative work to be written by Krzysztof Piesiewicz and directed by Kieślowski, but it became a memorial to Kieślowski after the director's death. The Lacrimosa from this Requiem appears in Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life. The Dies Irae from this Requiem appears in the film La Grande Bellezza, directed by Paolo Sorrentino. Preisner composed the theme music for the People's Century, a monumental twenty-six part documentary made jointly in 1994 by the BBC television network in United Kingdom and the PBS television network in the United States. He has also worked with director Thomas Vinterberg on the 2003 film It's All About Love. He provided orchestration for David Gilmour's 2006 album On An Island as well as additional orchestrations for the show at Gdańsk shipyards at which he also conducted the Baltic Philharmonic Orchestra, this was documented on the album Live in Gdańsk (2008). Silence, Night and Dreams is Zbigniew Preisner's new recording project, a large-scale work for orchestra, choir and soloists, based on texts from the Book of Job. The premier recording, was released in 2007 with the lead singer of Madredeus, Teresa Salgueiro and boy soprano Thomas Cully from Libera.
Assistant Property Master:
2024 Stimulants & Empathogens
Conductor:
1989 Decalogue VI
2024 Stimulants & Empathogens
Music:
1983 Psychoterapia
1983 The Weather Forecast
1986 Kolysanka
1986 Przez dotyk
1986 Will There Be a War
1987 Escape
1989 Decalogue I
1989 Decalogue VI
1989 The Last Schoolbell
1990 City Life
1990 The Last Boat
1991 Eminent Domain
1991 Kieslowski: Dialogue
1992 Dismissed From Life
1992 Olivier, Olivier
1993 On the Edge of the Horizon
1994 Desire in Motion
2001 Weiser
2005 Harry's Daughters
2007 A Secret
2012 Aglaya
2017 Valley of Shadows
2018 Lies We Tell
2020 Dear Child
2020 Mother Didn't Know
2023 Aprilis
2024 Stimulants & Empathogens
Original Music Composer:
1983 Psychoterapia
1983 The Weather Forecast
1985 No End
1986 I Like Bats
1986 Kolysanka
1986 Przez dotyk
1986 Will There Be a War
1987 Escape
1988 A Short Film About Killing
1988 A Short Film About Love
1988 I Love Cinema
1989 Decalogue I
1989 Decalogue II
1989 Decalogue III
1989 Decalogue IV
1989 Decalogue IX
1989 Decalogue V
1989 Decalogue VI
1989 Decalogue VII
1989 Decalogue VIII
1989 Decalogue X
1989 The Last Schoolbell
1990 City Life
1990 Europa Europa
1990 The Last Boat
1991 At Play in the Fields of the Lord
1991 Eminent Domain
1991 Kieslowski: Dialogue
1991 The Double Life of Véronique
1992 Damage
1992 Dismissed From Life
1992 Olivier, Olivier
1993 On the Edge of the Horizon
1993 The Secret Garden
1993 Three Colors: Blue
1994 Desire in Motion
1994 Three Colors: Red
1994 Three Colors: White
1994 When a Man Loves a Woman
1995 Elisa
1995 Feast of July
1997 FairyTale: A True Story
1997 The Island on Bird Street
1998 Foolish Heart
1999 Dreaming of Joseph Lees
2000 Aberdeen
2000 The Last September
2001 Weiser
2002 Between Strangers
2003 It's All About Love
2003 Strange Gardens
2004 The Beautiful Country
2005 Harry's Daughters
2007 A Secret
2008 A Woman in Berlin
2012 Aglaya
2014 The History of Eternity
2015 My Hindu Friend
2016 The Queen of Spain
2017 Angelica
2017 Valley of Shadows
2018 Lies We Tell
2020 Dear Child
2020 Memories of My Father
2020 Mother Didn't Know
2021 Man of God
2023 Aprilis
2024 Stimulants & Empathogens
Songs:
1983 Psychoterapia
1983 The Weather Forecast
1985 No End
1986 I Like Bats
1986 Kolysanka
1986 Przez dotyk
1986 Will There Be a War
1987 Escape
1988 A Short Film About Killing
1988 A Short Film About Love
1988 I Love Cinema
1988 To Kill a Priest
1989 Decalogue I
1989 Decalogue II
1989 Decalogue III
1989 Decalogue IV
1989 Decalogue IX
1989 Decalogue V
1989 Decalogue VI
1989 Decalogue VII
1989 Decalogue VIII
1989 Decalogue X
1989 The Last Schoolbell
1990 City Life
1990 Europa Europa
1990 The Last Boat
1991 At Play in the Fields of the Lord
1991 Eminent Domain
1991 Kieslowski: Dialogue
1991 The Double Life of Véronique
1992 Damage
1992 Dismissed From Life
1992 Olivier, Olivier
1993 On the Edge of the Horizon
1993 The Secret Garden
1993 Three Colors: Blue
1994 Desire in Motion
1994 Three Colors: Red
1994 Three Colors: White
1994 When a Man Loves a Woman
1995 Elisa
1995 Feast of July
1997 FairyTale: A True Story
1997 The Island on Bird Street
1998 Foolish Heart
1999 Dreaming of Joseph Lees
2000 Aberdeen
2000 The Last September
2001 Weiser
2002 Between Strangers
2003 It's All About Love
2003 Strange Gardens
2004 The Beautiful Country
2005 Harry's Daughters
2007 A Secret
2008 A Woman in Berlin
2011 The Tree of Life
2012 Aglaya
2014 The History of Eternity
2015 My Hindu Friend
2016 The Queen of Spain
2017 Angelica
2017 Valley of Shadows
2018 Lies We Tell
2020 Dear Child
2020 Memories of My Father
2020 Mother Didn't Know
2021 Man of God
2023 Aprilis
2024 Stimulants & Empathogens
Original Music Composer:
1989 Dekalog
1995 Radetzky March
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Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).
At least one plug-in comes from IMDb.
Data are -- hey, it's a plural -- subject to the limitations of their sources. (For example, TMDB search results currently max out at 20.) I am limiting myself to free data sources for now. (No, a "free trial" is not free.)
While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:
Regarding profile removals and data corrections:
Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).
Whereas the overall purpose of this website is to serve as a personal demo/portfolio/workshop of web and data skills, this Movies section is not meant to compete with or substitute for far more definitive movie websites.
Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.