(Prague) Polish director Agnieszka Holland said on Tuesday she wanted to “change the world” and contribute to the evolution of Polish society with her latest film, Green Border, about migrants stuck on the border between Poland and the Belarus.
This grueling black-and-white work won the special jury prize at the Venice film festival last month, but it also earned its 74-year-old director scorn and violent attacks from populist authorities in Warsaw and even death threats in his country.
The Polish government built a metal fence along its border with Belarus in 2022 to deter migrants from crossing the border illegally, an operation it says was orchestrated by Minsk.
Border guards, supported by the army, have often used push-backs to send migrants back to Belarus, measures criticized by human rights organizations.
Green Border tells the stories of migrants, border guards and volunteers, based on real experiences.
“The film was necessary because people felt it needed to be talked about, that we needed to ask ourselves who we are and what humanity means,” the director told reporters in Prague.
“I wanted to change the world” with this film, she said in Czech, a language she learned while studying at the Prague Film Academy in the late 1960s.
Ms Holland, who has been nominated for two Oscars, said she spent a week with two bodyguards following death threats when the film was due to be released in Polish cinemas.
She also faced hate speech from senior politicians in the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party.
“The attacks on me were senseless, something I had never experienced despite living in communist Poland,” she added.
Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro compared his film to “the propaganda of Nazi Germany.”
The migration issue was one of the main themes of the Polish legislative election campaign on October 15, with the ruling party highlighting its anti-immigration policy, while the opposition accused it of actually favoring entry many migrants by issuing them thousands of visas.
The pro-European opposition obtained a parliamentary majority in the legislative elections in Poland on Sunday, which should allow it to end 8 years of rule by PiS, which nevertheless remains the leading party.
Ms. Holland said that Poles in general had received the film well during the tour she made in the country to present it.
“People cried, they stood up and applauded, even in small cinemas,” she said, adding that the film served as “collective psychotherapy” in the eastern regions, close to the border.
Holland said she expected the mindset to change in Poland, although “it will take time.”
She is now preparing a film on Franz Kafka.
