This is an emotionally charged, deeply troubling drama about the struggles of families displaced by war to resettle in the safety of Western Europe. Arriving by land over the Polish border from Belarus, they should by rights be able to claim asylum and be placed in a detention center until the merits of their case are heard. Instead, they are rounded up and dumped back on the eastern side of the barbed wire fence with as much brutality as the guards can muster. And then the game begins again.
Veteran Agnieszka Holland — whose prolific career runs the gamut from The Secret Garden to In Darkness and episodes of The Wire and House of Cards — approaches the story from several different vantage points, including the refugees’ perspective and the guards’, but you will never doubt where her moral conscience lies. Shot in stark black and white, this is utterly compelling cinema; a timely, vehement denunciation of resurgent fascism and the quiescence which enables it.
Extraordinary… One of the best films of the year.
Stephanie Zacharek, Time
You can almost feel it encasing you in its heat.
Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
More films like this need to be made and seen.
Joshua Rothkopf, The Los Angeles Times
Agnieszka Holland
Jalal Altawil, Maja Ostaszewska, Tomasz Włosok, Behi Djanati Atai, Mohamad Al Rashi, Dalia Naous
Poland/France/Czech Republic/Belgium
2023
In Polish, English and Arabic with English subtitles
Special Jury Prize, Venice 2023
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Credits
Executive Producer
Mike Downey, Jeff Field
Producer
Fred Bernstein, Agnieszka Holland, Marcin Wierzchoslawski
Screenwriter
Agnieszka Holland, Gabriela Lazarkiewicz-Sieczko, Maciej Pisuk
Cinematography
Tomasz Naumiuk
Original Music
Frederic Vercheval
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