This film essay follows the remarkable life story of the musician and film composer Krzysztof Komeda. First as a jazz pianist, he gained cult-status in Poland. Then, as a film composer he made it into Hollywood’s first ranks. In the 1950s and 1960s Komeda composed music for more than 60 American films. With compositions like the lullaby for “Rosemary´s Baby” (1968) by Roman Polanski, Komeda succeeded in writing his own chapter in the history of soundtracks. But there his career came to a sudden end. Claudia Buthenhoff-Duffy’s film reveals the drama of Komeda’s life by the means of the melodic sounds of his music.

 

Awards:

 

2010 – Silver FIPA award for Claudia Buthenhoff-Duffy at the Biarritz International Festival of Audiovisual Programming (France).

 

About the director:

 

Born in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1959, Claudia Buthenhoff- Duffy was first trained in jewellery making. Then she worked as a carpenter and in theater. She has been active in the film world since 2001. She graduated from the Kaskeline film school in Berlin with a short film, “To Find Finns” (Finnen Finden, 2002). She participated in several script writing seminars, and then worked for the German distributor “Neue Visionen”. In 2005 she began a research on the documentary “Komeda – a Soundtrack For a Life” (Komeda - muzyczne ścieżki życia, 2009), which she wrote and directed.