In the rich and often perilous history of postwar Polish cinema, Krzysztof Kieślowski—late maker of the Three Colours trilogy—has found a unique place in the hearts of western cinephiles. But another Krzysztof has arguably been as influential and certainly as international. And Krzysztof Zanussi is generously represented among the 21 titles coming to the Cinematheque as part of Masterpieces of Polish Cinema, sampling films made from 1957 to the end of Communism in Eastern Europe.

Starting Thursday (May 22) and running until late June, the series was put together by Martin Scorsese, with help from several cultural groups and various Polish consulates, including the one in Vancouver. Highlights include Kieślowski’s A Short Film About Killing, Wojciech Jerzy Has’s fancifully time-travelling The Saragossa Manuscript, and no fewer than five titles from grand master Andrzej Wajda, including the Solidarity-era Man of Iron and opening-night centrepiece Ashes and Diamonds. (That last classic, from 1958, like several of these titles, stars Zbigniew Cybulski, whom you could call the Marcello Mastroianni of Polish cinema.)

“I had no say in what was chosen,” admits Zanussi, reached at his home office in Warsaw. “The program represents Scorsese’s personal taste, and I was honoured that he chose three of my movies, so of course I am glad to be involved. I think it helped that I happened to have recently restored several of my prints.”

The combination of pride and practicality is typical of Zanussi, who was born just months before Hitler invaded Poland, and who studied physics before turning to cinema during the artistic explosion of the late 1950s. His carefully structured tales usually feature characters—often academics or artists—looking for something out of reach through seemingly practical means. This happens during mathematical research in The Constant Factor, a superficially frolicsome linguistics conference in Camouflage, and brain studies in The Illumination. These cerebral settings usually can’t obscure brutal power struggles, reflecting inner conflicts as well as Poland’s own compromised state, perennially poised between superpowers.

“I think this goes back to my early studies,” he continues, in flawless English. “There was a time when science became a kind of religion, and people thought they could find all the answers there, even when the questions were spiritual, or even metaphysical.”

The veteran director, who has also written books and made documentaries about filmmaking, is fluent in Italian, German, and French, as well as English, and this helped give him opportunities to direct and oversee numerous coproductions, even in the darkest days of Communist rule.

“It is strange,” he recalls, “but there was a lot of pride—even snobbery—in pulling off these international projects, especially when they won awards and critical attention. So that gave me a certain amount of freedom. But I definitely don’t want to get nostalgic for the bad old days.”

In the post-Wall era, Zanussi was noted for 1992’s The Touch, a Bergman-esque effort starring Max von Sydow and Canada’s Lothaire Bluteau. He’s been especially active lately, having just wrapped The Foreign Body, a coproduction between Italy, Poland, and Russia covering some of the elements touched upon in Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida, which just played here.

On the whole, the filmmaker, who turns 75 next month, avoids looking back. “I do miss the times when cinema, and the arts in general, seemed to mean so much more to people. On the other hand, older material like this is now available in ways it never was before, in this numerical—I mean, digital age. I used to think that film has the life span of a butterfly, but now it has the life of a turtle!”