“Polish cinema is in a state of flux”

Text: Sarah Kanning

For eight years, from 2015 to 2023, Poland was ruled by right-wing populists and nationalists. Anyone committed to liberal values, freedom and democracy often had a difficult time during those years – not only those in politics, law and science, but above all those working in the media and art.

When her new film “The Green Border” (Zielona granica, 2023) about migrant pushbacks at the border between Poland and Belarus was released in cinemas shortly before the parliamentary elections in 2023, Agnieszka Holland, probably Poland’s best-known filmmaker, had for example to engage bodyguards. Her critics from the right-wing conservative camp accused the 74-year-old director of “spitting on” her country and of being a “Putin stooge”.

“Poland is a divided society,” says Dr Martin Krispin, Director of the DAAD Regional Office Warsaw. “The two main political camps are irreconcilable, indeed hostile, towards one another, which is reflected among other things in the blurring of boundaries in language,” explains Krispin, adding that there are many topics igniting controversial debates. The question of abortion alone prompted hundreds of thousands of people to take to the streets in 2021. There are also bitter arguments about migration, Poland’s role in the European ­Union and the issue of integration and internationalisation.

This division is also evident in Polish cinema. While the ruling PiS party also exerted its political influence on film production, dragging for ex­ample entire groups of schoolchildren to watch partly state-funded heroic historical dramas such as “Pilecki’s Report” (Raport Pileckiego, 2023) or “Orlęta. Grodno ’39“ (2022), filmmakers explored – and continue to explore – societal issues, sometimes quietly and at times more radically, thereby attracting international attention.

“There are currently some exciting films and wonderful stories in Polish cinema,” says Dr Kalina Kupczyńska, a literary scholar at the Department of German Media and Austrian Culture at the University of Łódź. The DAAD alumna received funding for research stays and lectureships in Germany on several occasions from 2010 to 2022. She focuses among other things on film adaptations of German-language literature, autobiographical and historical comics, comics about gender and LGBTQ issues and contemporary literature from Austria.

“The Woman on the Roof” (Kobieta na ­dachu, 2022), a film that won awards at festivals in ­Gdynia and New York and was also shown in ­Germany, achieved international renown. In this Polish-French-Swedish co-production, director Anna Jadowska tells the story of a non-descript elderly ­woman who finally dares to break free of her constraints. Cinematographer Ita Zbroniec-Zajt uses overexposed colours to portray the coldness and aloofness of the protagonist’s world. “A sensitivity towards marginalised groups has now become more widely established in Polish cinema, too,” says Kalina Kupczyńska. “Warts-and-all realism combined with stunning film aesthetics are characteristic of this type of cinema.” In “Bread and Salt” (Chleb i sól, 2022) for example, a young man witnesses a spiral of racism and violence between villagers and the ­Arabs who run a kebab shop. In “Woman of” (Kobieta z…, 2023), a feature film by Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert that premiered at the Venice Film Festival, a young man from the provinces must come to terms with his transgender identity amid the real socialism of 1970s and 1980s Poland.

That historical films can also be reimagined is demonstrated by “Kos“ (2022), a film by Paweł Maślona about Tadeusz Kościuszko, which – with a nod to Tarantino – portrays a kind of broken superhero and is for the most part in English. “This film gives me hope because it breaks with the Polish cinema tradition of reducing everything to a male heroic narrative,” says Kupczyńska. “Young people nowadays also want to watch a different kind of historical film, or at least I hope they do.”

The Regional Office in Warsaw, in its capacity as a mediator of scholarship and culture, closely moni­tors the political and artistic discussions in Poland and fosters dialogue between artists and scholars from educational perspectives. “The DAAD and the Regional Office Warsaw offer among other things a programme for artists, including those working in visual arts, film and music,” says Regional Office Dir­ector Martin Krispin. Since 1997, more than 10,000 people from Poland have received funding in all the DAAD’s programmes.

The Polish film director, 2D animator, illustrator and DAAD alumna Paulina Ziółkowska is seeing a strong movement among female filmmakers in the Polish animated film industry. “The women contribute their unique perspectives and narrative styles, though they also deal with global phenomena such as loneliness and the battle for equality and self-determination.” Because animated films traditionally passed somewhat below the radar, they are a means of tackling controversial issues. Ziółkowska explains that animation artists worldwide keep joining forces to create spontaneous film flashmobs and design little snippets for protest films, for example against the wars in Gaza and Ukraine or the abortion law in Poland. “Cinema is in a state of flux, reflecting and organically absorbing the issues that surround it. Currently, it reflects the many conflicts and the protests against them.” —