Skip to main content
Green Border film image; soldier stands over man and child on ground

Green Border

This event has passed

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

Director

Agnieszka Holland

Cast

Jalal Altawil, Maja Ostaszewska, Tomasz Włosok, Behi Djanati Atai, Mohamad Al Rashi, Dalia Naous

Credits
Country of Origin

Poland/France/Czech Republic/Belgium

Year

2023

Language

In Polish, English and Arabic with English subtitles

Awards

Special Jury Prize, Venice 2023

19+
147 min

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

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

Also Playing

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Dir. Mike Nichols
131 min

A young couple accept an invitation for a nightcap with history professor George (Richard Burton) and his wife Martha (Elizabeth Taylor). At first it's fun and games. But what passes for caustic wit soon degenerates into vicious mind games.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema
Drop Dead City
Drop Dead City film image; someone holding a newspaper up in front of a brick wall

Drop Dead City

Dir. Michael Rohatyn & Peter Yost
108 min

New York, 1975. The city is minutes away from bankruptcy and President Gerald Ford wants no part of it. Sanitation workers are on strike and cops are telling tourists it's not safe to visit. The town is going up in flames and they can't pay the firemen.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Shall We Dance?

Dir. Masayuki Suô
137 min

Masayuki Suô's delightful and charming 1996 film was a box office smash and won 14 Japanese Academy Awards including Best Film. It's the story of a married salaryman who falls in love with... dance.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

In the Mood for Love

Dir. Wong Kar-wai
107 min

Wong Kar-wai's most acclaimed and popular film is a love story about two neighbours (Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung) who are drawn together by the long absences of their respective spouses + a newly released short companion piece from 2001.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema