[3] Kanievska began his television directing career in Australia in the early 1970s with Crawford Productions, producing episodes of the drama series Matlock Police (1971–1976), which details the lives of policemen working in a fictional country town in Victoria.
Returning to London, Kanievska spent the latter half of the 1970s building up a range of credits including live television and entertainment programmes like Our Show (1977–1978) and the drama serial Rooms (1974).
Following a short film called The First Day (1980),[4] a docu-drama starring Miranda Richardson, Kanievska's career as a feature director began in earnest with Another Country (1984), a British romantic historical drama written by Julian Mitchell and adapted from his play of the same title.
The film is loosely based on the life of the spy and double agent Guy Burgess and explores his homosexuality and exposure to Marxism while examining the hypocrisy and snobbery of the English public school system.
"[8] Of his visual aesthetic Everett recalls, "He was addicted to complicated tracking shots where the camera is put on a kind of railway and moves around during the action, like a silent voyeur … Marek directed it beautifully.
The film stars Andrew McCarthy as Clay, a college freshman returning home for Christmas to spend time with his ex-girlfriend Blair (Jami Gertz) and his friend Julian (Robert Downey, Jr.), who is struggling with drug addiction.
Kanievska followed this with A Different Loyalty (2004), a drama inspired by the story of British traitor Kim Philby's love affair and marriage to Eleanor Brewer in Beirut and his eventual defection to the Soviet Union.