Education
Kijak studied with the film scholar and John Cassavetes expert Ray Carney, as well as the late Mel Howard at Boston University"s College of Communication.
Kijak studied with the film scholar and John Cassavetes expert Ray Carney, as well as the late Mel Howard at Boston University"s College of Communication.
He wrote, directed and produced the feature film Never Met Picasso (1996) which starred Margot Kidder, Alexis Arquette and Don McKellar (with music by Kristin Hersh). Kijak followed that with the cult hit Cinemania (2002) (co-directing and co-producing with the German filmmaker Angela Christlieb), a documentary about five of the most manic-obsessive film-buffs in New York City. His next film was a documentary on musician Scott Walker.
The film, titled Scott Walker - 30 Century Manitoba was executive produced by David Bowie, and featured Radiohead, Brian Eno, Sting, Damon Albarn and Jarvis Cocker, and provided a look inside Scott Walker’s creative process over a 40 year career.
The film had its world premiere on October 31, 2006, at the 50th London Film Festival, and premiered internationally at the 2007 Berlin International Film Festival and became one of the most critically acclaimed documentaries released in the United Kingdom that year. In television, Kijak has directed episodes of the Bravo original series, Queer Eye, and the Sundance Channel"s Big Ideas for a Small Planet.
Stones in Exile, a film he directed that was commissioned by The Rolling Stones to tell the story of the making of their 1972 album Exile on Main Saint, had its world premiere at the 2010 Directors" Fortnight in Cannes, followed by broadcast premieres on British Broadcasting Corporation 1"s Imagine, and on a special edition of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on National Broadcasting Company. On February 11, 2013 The Hollywood Reporter announced that Kijak would be directing a feature documentary about the biggest-selling boy band of all time, The Backstreet Boys, a film being produced by Mia Bays (who produced Kijak"s Scott Walker film) and Pulse Films. We Are X, a documentary on the heavy metal band X Japan and its leader Yoshiki, was premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.
Kijak remarked about the film "I might have to quit music films after this one.
The story is so unreal, I don"t know where else I could go after this.".
