Poland's public television network TVP has started transmitting a remastered version of Krzysztof Kieślowski's highly-acclaimed ‘Decalogue’ series.

The digital remastering of the ten-episode series, which amounts to 566 minutes of film and over 842,000 stills, took 15 months to complete.

The project was carried out by TVP and was supervised by the cinematographers who had worked on the film in the late 1980s.

As some cinematographers had passed away in recent years, the face-lift of several episodes was carried out by other leading Polish cameramen.

The entire ‘Decalogue’ series was premiered at the International Film Festival in Venice in 1989. The previous year ‘A Short Film About Killing’ won a Critics’ Award at the Cannes Festival and the Felix Prize of the European Film Academy, while ‘A Short Film About Love’ a special award at the International Festival in San Sebastian. The film has also proved a major commercial success, with screening rights sold to over 50 distributors in 70 countries.

Director Kieślowski, who died in 1996, co-wrote the scripts with then lawyer Krzysztof Piesiewicz (later a senator who was the subject of a highly publicised bribery scandal).

In Poland, the ‘Decalogue’ episodes had an audience ranging from 12 to 15 million when they were first shown on Polish Television in 1990. (mk/nh)