Zbigniew Zapasiewicz
Birthday: Born in 1934-09-13 in Warsaw, Poland
Deathday: 2009-07-14
TV Credits
Stawka większa niż życie
Character: kapitan Karpinsky
Stawka większa niż życie is a series about the adventures of a Polish secret agent, Hans Kloss, who acts as a double agent in the Abwehr during Second World War in occupied Poland....
Dekalog
Character: przewodniczący komisji adwokackiej
Originally made for Polish television, “The Decalogue” focuses on the residents of a housing complex in late-Communist Poland, whose lives become subtly intertwined as they face emotional dilemmas that are at once deeply personal and universally human. Its ten hour-long films, drawing from the Ten Commandments for thematic inspiration and an overarching structure, grapple deftly with complex moral and existential questions concerning life, death, love, hate, truth, and the passage of time....
Ziemia obiecana
Character: Kessler
...
Polskie drogi
Character: Paweł Krajewski, antykwariusz
...
Marszałek Piłsudski
Character: Józef Piłsudski (old)
...
Mistrz i Małgorzata
Character: Pilat
...
Movie Credits
Blind Chance
Character: Adam (1)
Witek runs after a train. Three variations follow on how such a seemingly banal incident could influence the rest of Witek's life....
The Promised Land
Character: Kessler
In nineteenth-century Łódź, Poland, three friends want to make a lot of money by building and investing in a textile factory. An exceptional portrait of rapid industrial expansion is shown through the eyes of one Polish town....
A Short Film About Killing
Character: Przewodniczacy Komisji
Jacek climbs into the taxi driven by Waldemar, tells him to drive to a remote location, then brutally strangles him, seemingly without motive....
Tylko Beatrycze
Character: Brother Andrzej / Narrator (voice)
Raised by the monks, Stanisław gets involved in a scheme to murder the king....
Without Anesthesia
Character: Jerzy Michałowski
A famous Polish journalist presents a problem for the powers-that-be when he displays his full political skill and knowledge on a television show featuring questions and answers on a world conference by a panel of journalists. His enemies take away his privileges when he is away. The shock of being "unwanted" parallels a deeper disappointment in his private life: his wife has an affair with a jealous young rival, and after 15 years of marriage and two daughters wants a divorce. She offers no exp...
Matylda's Birthday
Character: Konrad
Matylda reflects on her life on her 30th birthday....
Passion
Character: Jan Józef Tyssowski
The last days in the life of Edward Dembowski (1822-1846), the organizer of the Cracow Uprising in 1846. The informal leader of the uprising, determined to fight for the unification of Polish lands and the liberation of the peasants, negotiates with other politicians....
Ostatnie takie trio
Character: Cygan
...
Demons of War
Character: minister
A detachment of the Polish IFOR forces in Bosnia is led by Major Keller, who is being investigated for insubordination during a patrol in Srebrenica. The investigation is to be led by two arriving officers - Lieutenant Czacki and Major Kusz who will also replace Keller as CO. When the camp's RTO receives a communication from a downed Norwegian chopper, Keller ignores his standing orders and leads a platoon to rescue the crew....
Kłopotliwy gość
Character: Committee Member
Strange human-shaped phenomenon appears in Piotrowski's new flat and he approaches all available institutions to help him get rid of it....
Tango
Character: Stomil
...
In Broad Daylight
Character: "Siwy"
Set in 1905. The story focuses on a young and inexperienced man in a revolutionary execution squad. He does his killing job out of idealism, and for the love of a woman. The young student murders a Russian spy and is afterwards arrested by the police. Much to his surprise he is released after a session with the traitor-judge, hinting at some leaks in the organisation. Student reports his suspicions back to the organisation, but in response is given a new hit mission....
Pigs
Character: senator Wencel, przewodniczący komisji weryfikacyjnej
In good old days Franz Maurer and his partners from secret police used to live like kings. Now, they all must adapt to new post-communist environment where they are scorned and losing all the privileges. Some, like Franz, are like ordinary police fighting against drug dealers. But Franz would soon find that some of his friends are on the other side....
Sposób bycia
Character: Protagonist's father
A forty-year old man, destroyed physically and mentally by life experiences recounts his life....
Life as a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease
Character: Tomasz Berg
Tomasz, a doctor, and atheist, is diagnosed with cancer. His ex-wife offers him the money for treatment in Paris, but his lung cancer is past the operating stage. Facing imminent death, he questions the beliefs he has held all his life and starts experimenting with both his own life and those of others....
Barrier
Character: Fake Blind Man
A dream-like meditation on post-industrial life in Communist Poland....
Pictures from Life
Character: Manager
Seven stories based on unusual court cases from Poland....
Idol
Character: cenzor
In 1969 a young writer decides to write an essay on a well known Polish writer, who had to leave the country in the 50's, later living, working and dying in exile. He slowly assembles the character and even the exterior appearances of his idol until his own identity tragically disappears....
The Contract
Character: mężczyzna przy telefonie w "Victorii"; nie występuje w napisach
Bearing traces of the old Anton Chekhov play The Wedding, The Contract is set during an "arranged" ceremony. The bride and groom barely know each other, but this matters not at all to their tradition-bound families. At the last minute, the bride balks. Only slightly nonplused, the groom's father, a status-seeking doctor, decides to go ahead with the expensive reception anyway. Polish director Krzysz Zanussi uses this scenario to stick it to capitalist corruption, and to society's destruction of ...
Egzekutor
Character: mecenas
...
From a Far Country
Character: Mieczysław Kotlarczyk
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 Easte...
Baryton
Character: Antoni Domagała / Antonio Taviatini
A famous opera singer comes to his hometown in Poland, where he loses his voice....
Two for the Seesaw
Character: Jerry
...
The Story of Sin
Character: Priest Jutkiewicz
A beautiful Polish girl whose lover has gone to Rome to seek a divorce from his previous wife travels around Europe in search of him and suffers a variety of tragic adventures as the men around her try to fit her into their own selfish schemes....
Childish Questions
Character: Więzień
A young architect is locked up in prison. He recalls his uncompromising youth and gradual sliding into the moral swamp of compromises. He was not alone. A group of his friends, dreamers and glass house builders, accompanied him....
The Wicket Gate
Character: Dramaturg Wiktor Zawadzki
Accomplished playwright supervises the stage rehearsals for his new play away from home. He rents a room at a private house, which is owned by mother and daughter. Wiktor gets entangled in the two women's bizarre relationship....
Camouflage
Character: Jakub Szelestowski
A moral conflict between a young assistant and an associate professor arises during a university linguistics camp....
Laura
Character:
Laura is personnel manager in a hospital. Her father-in-law was a high ranking cadre, her mother-in-law is an influential functionary, it is only her husband - director of an archives - who is unfit for everything. Laura does not like to be home. During one of her rovings she meets her former classmate, who wants to break into the world of pop music with a new band....
The Biggest Quarrel
Character: narrator
The protagonists of the film are three brothers: Eino, Aho and Laje. The brothers live from the cultivation of the family land. Eino works from dawn to night. Aho likes to spend time playing at a nearby inn. Laje once helps Eino, and once accompanies Aho. Once Aho gets cheated by playing dice and losing his family land. The brothers set off in search of a job. They reach a road fork. Eino wants to go left, Aho to the right, and Laje agrees once with one, once with the other brother. The brothers...
The Trial
Character: Block
An adaptation of Franz Kafka's "The Trial"...
Po upadku
Character: Roman Ratajczak
A story of high-ranking party members from the 1970s embroiled in political deception....
Wiano
Character: Priest
A peasant girl is abandoned by her fiancé after she has talked her father into giving her his land as a dowry....
The Mother of the Kings
Character: Wiktor Lewen
Made in 1982, shelved for five years. Story opens with Lucja Krol's husband under the tram. She gives birth to her fourth son on the floor of their new apartment. Neighbor Wiktor, a communist intellectual, befriends the poverty-stricken family but is soon arrested and sent to jail. During the war Lucja narrowly escapes a Nazi roundup at the black market. Her sons hold ardent Communist meetings in their apartment, with her blessing. Lucja works hard, but without complaint. After the war, Klemens ...
Persona non grata
Character: Wiktor
A Polish ambassador (Zbigniew Zapasiewicz) finds his life falling into ruin following the death of his wife....
Hope
Character: Franciszek's Father
Francis Ratay witnesses the theft of church painting "Angel with violin". The entire incident recorded by an amateur camera. The thief turns out to Benedict Weber, gallery owner and art connoisseur. Francis comes to his gallery. Blackmails him, that will provide police record, unless the image in three days back in place....
The Fall
Character:
On a single day the fate of three couples are joined and some of them sealed....
Salvation
Character: Adam Małecki
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 ...
Man of the Crowds
Character: Wladimir Kalo
Pawel Markowicz suffers from Stendhal syndrome and it is to Dr.Giordano that he tells his secret....
The Maids of Wilko
Character: Julcia's Husband
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....
Stand off
Character:
In a border town two sons of the local commander using stolen arms take hostages of eighteen girls in a dormitory, because they want to go West by plane....
Behind the Wall
Character: Jan
Jan is a young assistant professor in chemistry and a workaholic, Anna is an unsuccessful science writer who turns to Jan for advice and human compassion, but Jan, absorbed with his career, remains immune to Anna's clumsy efforts to pierce his defenses....
Ways in the Night
Character: Amadei
Friedrich is a wealthy, handsome German soldier fighting in World War II. His unit is stationed in Poland and occupies the estate of Countess Elzbieta. Forced to remain in her presence, Friedrich begins to pursue Elzbieta out of boredom....
Imperative
Character: Psychiatrist
Polish director Krzysztof Zanussi once more explores the dilemma of intellectualism at the expense of humanity in 1982's Imperative. The story concerns math professor Robert Powell, who feels that there is something lacking in his ever-so-precise life. What is missing is truth, specifically philosophical truth. Thus he philosophizes at great length, allowing director Zanussi plenty of room for didactic but little room for warmth. Leading ladies Brigette Fossey and Leslie Caron occasionally melt ...
Placówka
Character: lector (voice) (uncredited)
The problem of the Polish population displacement from their land within the limits of the Prussian partition. Germans come to the village harassing a wealthy peasant Snail, leading to the tragedy. Slug's cottage burns, his wife dies. The peasant does not give up, defending his inheritance. He sticks on a patch of his Polish soil and protects it like a soldier his post....
Ktokolwiek wie...
Character: TV Journalist
A psychological portrait of a missing girl is drawn by the people who knew her, being interviewed by a journalist helping in the search....
Rendes-Vous with a Spy
Character: Captain Kres
A thriller about Polish Intelligence Service working on detecting a net of foreign spies....
Con Amore
Character: Professor
Andrzej and Grzegorz are students of Warsaw Conservatory and preparing for the International Piano Competition. Eva - a beautiful Grzegorz's girlfriend is seriously ill, the doctors suspect she has brain cancer. Even for the sake of health and life of his beloved Grzegorz disagrees to miss even a single day of preparation for the contest. Andrzej has a girlfriend Zosia (the daughter of a professor of music), but the young pianist falls in love with Grzegorz's girlfriend and takes care of the si...
Decalogue V
Character: Commission Chairman
Jacek, an angry drifter, murders a taxi driver, brutally and without motive. His case is assigned to Piotr, an idealistic young lawyer who is morally opposed to the death penalty, and their interactions take on an emotional honesty that throws into stark relief for Piotr the injustice of killing of any kind....
Weekend Stories: Deceptive Charm
Character: hrabia
An idealistic scientist is encouraged by his wife to use his good looks to get ahead, but his new job carries with it temptations and traps....
Revisited
Character: Jakub Szalestowski
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....
The Supplement
Character: Doctor Berg
An examination of the relationship between an indecisive medical student and his fiancee....
Obcy musi fruwać
Character: krytyk Przywilej
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Akcja pod Arsenałem
Character: ojciec "Rudego"
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Fever
Character:
The film is set in 1905, in a time of feverish revolutionary underground activity in Poland partitioned between three neighbours. All the characters are committed anarchists. The bomb maker puts an invention together to place it at the disposal of young inexperienced terrorists fighting against Tsarist oppression. The story follows the passing of this bomb from anarchist to anarchist as several attempts are made on the life of Tsarist governor general, until, at the end, it is effectively and ha...
Mazepa
Character: king Jan II Kazimierz
...
Kung-fu
Character: docent Kwaśniak
A well-regarded engineer in a big enterprise is hounded by trumped up attacks on his integrity when he delves too deeply into how bonuses are handled by the management. He gets into an argument with the guard, is arrested and subsequently fired. An old friend, a journalist, tries to sort things out but the victim's stubbornness and past problems with his wife lead to lossess by both....
Convicted
Character: adwokat
A man is tried in court for failing to help his brother to avoid suicide....
...jestem przeciw
Character: Ojciec Jacka
...
A Year of the Quiet Sun
Character: ubek
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......
Hospital of the Transfiguration
Character: Rygier
Shortly after the beginning of World War 2 a young idealist doctor is employed in a psychiatric hospital, where his notions of proper care for the patients are challenged by staff and the German occupation....
The Deserters
Character: kapitan Wagner
Set in military barracks in a small town during World War I. The soldiers herded in the barracks are 'politically suspect' mix of characters from all over of the Austro-Hungarian Empire: Czechs, Jews, and even Italians, but officers in charge are Germans. A new lieutenant arrives with the mission to bring order to the unit. He is the sadist, enjoying humiliating the men. Fed up with his behaviour the lower ranks kidnap him one night and string him up in a public toilet. They also make sure that ...