AND GOD CREATED ACTRESS — AGATA KULESZA – 15. Festiwal Filmu i Sztuki Dwa Brzegi | Lubelskie

Never Gonna Snow Again

Alicja Sawicka — Wed, 14 Jul 2021 15:08:51 +0000

Zhenya was born in Chernobyl. He works in a relatively affluent middle class neighborhood in a gated community. External luxury hides loneliness, boredom, and irritation, from which drugs are an escape. The immigrant wanders from door to door, massaging the battered bodies of residents of wealthy homes. His skills gradually extend beyond massage, Zhenya permeates their souls, becoming more and more desired and adored. Zhenya can be seen as the personification of self-renewing nature, a perpetum mobile, but is a human interference in the world too profound for it to be self-renewing?

Rose

Alicja Sawicka — Wed, 14 Jul 2021 14:57:37 +0000

War is a time of cruelty and lawlessness, it breaks social bonds and fractures people’s lives. Those who have survived struggle to put their reality back together. In the post-war Mazury region the paths of Róża, a widow of a German soldier who was left alone on a farm, and Tadeusz, a former Home Army officer who hides his identity after the Warsaw Uprising, intersect. Alone woman is defenseless against both the Soviet soldiers and Polish looters. Smarzowski’s film is painfully real. The acting duo of Agata Kulesza and Marcin Dorociński makes us suffer together with the characters, hoping for a change of fate.

The Innocents

Alicja Sawicka — Wed, 14 Jul 2021 14:40:27 +0000

The end of World War II, the Polish province after the passage of the Red Army, marked by death and violence. The complicated relationship between Mathilde, a young French Red Cross doctor and atheist, and the Benedictine Sister Superior. Two strong women, navigated by different value and belief systems, must meet halfway to help nuns raped by the Red Army. Several of them are pregnant, struggling not only with trauma, fear of motherhood, but also fear of ostracism and the threat of closure of the monastery. Film critics emphasized the beautiful, painterly frames and excellent performance of Agata Kulesza and Agata Buzek.

Ida

Alicja Sawicka — Wed, 14 Jul 2021 14:25:22 +0000

Poland, 1960s. Anna is a war orphan, raised by nuns. She is in the novitiate, about to take his vows. Her mother superior persuades her to visit her aunt, Wanda Gruz, a former prosecutor and last living relative. Wanda reveals her true Jewish identity to Anna. Together they travel to the village of Piaski to discover the family history and circumstances of her parents’ tragic death. On her way, Anna meets Lisa, a young musician, and a closeness is born between them. However, she returns to the monastery. Anna will meet Lisa one more time, at Wanda’s funeral. The black-and-white, unusual framing, penetrating, painfully beautiful film brought Pawel Pawlikowski an Oscar as well as many other awards and honors.

25 Years of Innocence

Alicja Sawicka — Wed, 14 Jul 2021 14:09:09 +0000

The case of Tomek Komenda was an widely discussed and unbelievable shocking mistake of the Polish justice system. A Kafkaesque sentence of twenty-five years in prison was sentenced to a young man, wrongly imprisoned for the rape and murder of a teenage girl. Thanks to the determination of a police officer and two prosecutors, the case was reinvestigated and Komenda regained his freedom after serving eighteen years. Jan Holoubek’s film captures the fate of the protagonist who, despite being cast into the depths of hell, retains his dignity. The story is full of hope and love. A strong bond with his family helped Komenda get through the toughest times.