In March 2009, Rybczyński returned to Poland, taking up residence in Wrocław, where he set up the Center for Audiovisual Technologies (CeTA) at the site of the city's historic Feature Film Studio.

He also honed his film-making skills working as a cinematographer for young directors like Andrzej Barański, Piotr Andrejew, Wojciech Wiszniewski, and Filip Bajon on shorts, documentaries and educational films, and on Grzegorz Królikiewicz's feature-length The Dancing Hawk (Tańczący Jastrząb).

His films from the period include: The Talk (Rozmowa, TV) and Gropingly (Po Omacku) by Andrejew, Videocassette (Wideokaseta) by Bajon, and Wanda Gościmińska.

It was in this studio that he made his most important American films, including Steps (1987), The Fourth Dimension (1988), The Orchestra (1990), Manhattan (1991), and Kafka (1992), which were showered with enthusiastic critical acclaim and numerous awards.

Between 1984 and 1989, he made more than 30 music videos for such artists as Mick Jagger, Yoko Ono, Lou Reed, Simple Minds, Cameo, Art of Noise, Chuck Mangione, Pet Shop Boys, Lady Pank, The Alan Parsons Project, Supertramp, and Rush.

Among the results of Rybczyński's long-term research and experimentation are his inventions in the field of electronic-image technology, for which he holds several US patents, and which are widely used in the film and TV industries.

In March 2009, Rybczyński returned to Poland, taking up residence in Wrocław, where he set up the Center for Audiovisual Technologies (CeTa) at the site of the city's historic Feature Film Studio.

Rybczyński was also active in an avant-garde group "Warsztat Formy Filmowej", and had cooperated with Se-Ma-For Studios in Łódź, where he authored a series of short films, including: Plamuz (1973), Zupa (1974) and Nowa książka (1975).

After winning the Academy Award for Tango, Rybczyński moved to New York and embarked on a career directing music videos in the early years of MTV.

Rybczyński created dozens of music videos for artists including Art of Noise, Mick Jagger, Simple Minds, Pet Shop Boys, Chuck Mangione, The Alan Parsons Project, Yoko Ono, Lou Reed, Supertramp, Rush, Propaganda, and Lady Pank.

Frustrated with the quality of available chroma key technology — the process of removing a specific color frequency from film and video that had become essential to his work — Rybczyński began to author his own chromakey software in the 1990s.