Polish film and theatre director, screenwriter, producer, lecturer and author. He studied physics at Warsaw University (1955-1959) and philosophy at Jagiellonian University in Kraków (1959-1962), and then graduated from Lodz Film School in 1966. He started making his first amateur short films towards the end of the 1950s, filming Death of a Provincial as his graduation work at Lodz. He started filming for television, short documentaries and feature films. He filmed his first feature length for the silver screen in1969, The Structure of Crystal (Struktura krysztalu) which received an award for best script at Mar del Plata Film Festival in 1970, and one in Valladolid at a local film festival. During the 1970s his most popular films were made, while he simultaneously worked for television. His second big screen film Family Life (Zycie rodzinne, 1970) brought him a Silver Hugo in Chicago in 1971, and San Gregorio award in Valladolid in 1972. The Illumination (Iluminacja, 1973) won a FIPRESCI award, Golden Award Ecumenical Jury in Locarno in 1973, and it also received a special jury prize in his home country, at Polish Film Festival in 1974. This was followed by the awarded A Woman's Decision (Bilans Kwartalny, 1974) with Maja Komorowska in the leading role. In Polish German production he made a crime drama Pittsville - Ein Safe voll Blut (1975), after which he returned to his recognisable expression with Camouflage (1976). The film was awarded Golden Lion for best script at Polish Film Festival in 1997, receiving awards at festivals in Teheran and Rotterdam. During the 1970s he developed his central thematic character, a man put in a position of choosing between his personal values and challenges that force him to reject them. The question of moral choices and compromise between personal freedom and practical life which limits it is continued in Spiral (1978), which was his last film in the twentieth century. In the 1980s he continued filming for television and working on German productions, and as a recognized director, he made films in international co-production with actors from Poland, Germany, England and France. Among his films we should mention The Constant Factor (Constans, 1980), Imperative (1982), A Year of the Quiet Sun (Rok spokojnego slońca, 1984) where he worked with Maja Komorowska in the leading role again, and the film was awarded Golden Lion in Venice in 1984. Then he filmed The Paradigm (1985) where he collaborated with Italian actor Vittori Gassman, Wherever You Are... (1988) with English actor Julian Sands, and Inventory (1989) where he returned to working with Polish actors. In the 1990s, along with a few television films and serials he made Zycie za zycie (1991), The Touch (Dotkniecie reki, 1992) with Max von Sydow in the leading role, In Full Gallop (Cwal, 1996) with Maja Komorowska who was awarded best actress for that role (and Zanussi won the critics' award) at Polish Film Festival in 1996. Based on the drama by Pope John Paul II he made Our God's Brother (1997). In the mid-1990s he started a television film series Weekend Stories (Opowiesci weekendowe) in Polish production, with its first part A Woman's Business (1996) and the last, eighth film in 2001, titled The Hidden Treasure. Drama where he addresses the question of death Life as a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease (Zycie jako smiertelna choroba przenoszona droga plciowa, 2000) has won many Polish film awards (an Eagle for best film, producer, director, script, male leading role, editing and music at Polish Film Awards in 2001, and Golden Lion, critics' award and best actor at Polish Film Festival in 2000). This was followed by The Supplement (2002), an international co-production Persona non grata (2005), Italian Black Sun (2007), Polish And a Warm Heart (2008) and currently his last film Revisited (2009). Apart from actively making films, he is the director of Polish Film Studio TOR in Warsaw and a member of European Film Academy. He has written a few books on film (On Montage in Amateur Films in 1968; A Discourse on Amateur Film in 1978) and an autobiography Time to Die (1999). He is an active lecturer at many European universities (Lodz, Silesian University in Katówice, National Film and Television School in Great Britain, schools in Denmark and Switzerland). He has also worked as theatre director in Kraków, Bonn, Milan, Palermo, Basel and Rome. He has won many awards and honorary doctorates. At Indian Film festival in Goa in 2012 he received a lifetime achievement award.