Agnieszka Holland, a renowned Polish director and recipient of the special jury prize at the recent Venice film festival, found herself unexpectedly entangled in her country’s heated election campaign. Her latest film, Green Border, which explores the humanitarian crisis caused by Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko’s encouragement of migration to Poland and the EU, was seized upon by Poland’s ruling rightwing Law and Justice (PiS) party. The party used Holland’s portrayal of Polish and Belarusian guards mistreating migrants as both fuel and insult, aligning with their nationalist agenda in the lead-up to the election on Sunday.
Even before the film’s release in Poland on September 22, it faced a fierce backlash led by PiS. Justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro compared Holland’s work to Nazi propaganda, and the country’s president Andrzej Duda quoted a Polish resistance warning against watching Nazi films during Germany’s occupation, saying, “Only pigs sit in the cinema.” Holland, who had planned to volunteer as a polling station observer but received death threats, is leaving Warsaw ahead of schedule. As we enjoy our lunch at a traditional Polish restaurant, Papu, Holland reflects on the hate campaign and its impact on her.
Holland, dressed in black and accompanied by her two bodyguards, tells me that she avoids red meat, jokingly saying, “I don’t eat my brothers and sisters.” The conversation moves to her filmmaking career, particularly her focus on the tragedies of central and eastern Europe, including the Holocaust. Holland’s family history heavily influences her work. Her father was a Jewish journalist, and her Catholic mother fought in the Warsaw Uprising against the Germans. Her mother was later honored by Israel’s Yad Vashem remembrance center for aiding Jews during the Holocaust. Holland’s father, a fervent communist, returned to Warsaw after fleeing Germany’s invasion, only to find that his entire family had perished, except for one sister who miraculously survived by hiding in her dead sister’s coffin.
Holland opens up about her own life, from her childhood in postwar Warsaw to her time at film school during the Prague Spring and her collaboration with mentor Andrzej Wajda. She believes that communism, despite its scars, had a positive impact on filmmaking by fostering intelligent directors who used metaphors and symbols that audiences could interpret. Nowadays, she feels that directors have less intense life experiences, and audiences prefer simple storylines and true stories.
In 2019, Holland received a special award from Ukraine for her film Mr Jones, which sheds light on the Holodomor famine orchestrated by Stalin in Ukraine and the role of Walter Duranty, a New York Times correspondent who defended Stalin. Holland seeks to address the imbalance in cinema’s attention to Hitler’s crimes compared to Stalin’s. She notes that many Europeans still had an affinity for Russia after World War II, and countries under Soviet control failed to confront their communist pasts and hold people accountable for their crimes. Holland believes in seeking justice for the victims and recognizes the moral chaos in Poland and other parts of the world where the worst crimes can go unpunished.
As we conclude our lunch, Holland reflects on the dangers of “identity media” that aligns with one side of politics and destroys trust in journalism. She emphasizes the importance of democracy and the need to navigate the complexities of the modern world.
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