Breakdown

A motive which fascinates K. Kiwerski is machines. They always accompany the artist and often appear in his work. (...) For Krzysztof Kiwerski the machine is most of all a noble form determined by its utility. That is way he treats machines only as a visual phenomenon and a full value element of decoration. He paints the machines and detaches them from their functions – he savours the pure mechanic form and its perfect shape. However Krzysztof Kiwerski also verifies the constructional assets of his machines. He does this in his animated films, which are the second – following painting and drawing – medium of his artistic activity. Animation puts the machines frozen on paintings into motion (…) Krzysztof Kiwerski’s debut was in 1976 with the film “Breakdown”. Its action is in Cosmos, and the science fiction world has enabled numerous machines to appear on screen. Ever since the two ways of expression interweave. What they have in common is the unity of motives, affinity of form, a possibility to end up with compatible results by using methods specific either for painting or animated films, but based on analogical visual forms. All of this is evidence of the strict connection of both forms of artistic expression.
Wojciech Mischke, „Gazeta Krakowska”, 1987, nr 80 

Krzysztof Kiwerski, after graduating from the painting and graphics faculty of the Academy of Arts in Cracow (1973), where he studied in the Animated Film Workshop run by Jan January Janczak, ended up in the Animated Film Studio. His debut as a director was under the artistic guardianship of Ryszard Czekała with the film “Breakdown” (1975). Kiwerski’s first animation was well received by critics and festival juries. First in 1975 the “Breakdown” was awarded with Trieste Gold Seal for the best short film at the XIV International Science Fiction Film Festival in Trieste, and two years later with the Golden Goats award in the animated film category at the V Polish Film Festival for Children and Youth in Poznań. Also in 1977 the Jury of the Zenon Wasilewski Award distinguished “Breakdown” as the best Polish animated film for children realized from  1975-1977. In the following years the artist went back to making films for the youngest audience twice. They were incredibly successful and brought him more awards at the Poznań festival: “UFO” (1978) was honoured with a Golden Goats award (1979), and “Jasio” (1979)- a Silver Goats award (1981). All three mentioned films form a kind of triptych. All of them are amusing science fictions stories for children. Kiwerski, who had the function of the director, script writer and visual author made them according to a similar recipe. There are no words in any of the films, the image fully co-plays with the narration, and the soundtrack (containing mainly “cosmos” music) perfectly completes it. It is worth noting that the composer Marek Wilczyński combined electronic sounds and an expressive, blues-like poetics of a solo harmonica in the soundtrack of the ”Breakdown”, which gave a very interesting effect. Kiwerski goes back to his work for young audiences only in the 90s, but not to short author animations, but more commercial feature films: “Vixen” (co-directed with Paweł Nowosławski, 1992), “The Kingdom of the Green Glade” (1994), “Miki Mol and a Scary Jacket” (1996), “The Kingdom of the Green Glade. Return” (co-directed with L. Szmyd, 1998) and episodes of the series „Fairy tale outside the window” (co-directed with Ryszard Antoniszczak, 1994-1998).
Jerzy Armata