ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the difference between an autobiographical account produced by the filmmaker about his or her personal life story and an account which appears to be an auto-portrait but in fact is but a story told by one person about the other. The filmmaker withholds important material from the audience in not revealing anything of the dialogue which led to the production of the testimony or an autobiographical account—maybe for good reasons. The relationship between historical trauma, testimony, fiction and documentary is not an easy one. A documentary filmmaker often finds herself/himself as the mediator of life and death—an awkward position, which almost invites grandiose fantasies. The camera in Kieslowski’s film is like a magic talisman or indeed Lacanian Phallus.
