Filmmakers have stepped in to defend Agnieszka Holland after her Venice competition film Green Border was strongly criticised by a leading member of Poland’s conservative government for its depiction of the treatment of migrants along the Poland-Belarus border.
Comparing the film to Nazi propaganda, Poland’s hard-right justice minister, Zbigniew Ziobro wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: “In the Third Reich, the Germans produced propaganda films showing Poles as bandits and murderers. Today they have Agnieszka Holland for that.”
Green Border tells the story of refugees, charity workers, activists and border guards, whose lives intersect in the cold, swampy forests between Poland and Belarus.
Migrants started flocking to the border in 2021, after Belarus, a close Russian ally, opened travel agencies in the Middle East offering a new unofficial route into Europe - a move the European Union said was designed to create a crisis. Poland refused to let them cross, leaving hundreds stranded in a freezing no-man’s land, and temporarily imposed an exclusion zone, forbidding reporters and human rights groups from approaching the area to see what was going on.
In an open letter calling on filmmakers to support Holland, Polish organisation the Women In Film Association has criticised “venom-spitting apparatchicks” for smearing the director and her film.
The letter says Holland “bore witness to the tragedy that is happening at our Eastern border every day by making a film virtually in no-time and without help of public institutions. It required tremendous courage, involvement, and passion from her and all other creators of the film. This is why they deserve our solidarity and support in the face of increasingly vicious attacks.
Long a social and political campaigner, Holland’s awards shelf includes a 2017 Berlin Silver Bear for Spoor through to the Oscar-nominated Europa Europa (1992), In Darkness (2012) and Angry Harvest (1986).
Holland is president of the European Film Academy (EFA). EFA chair and long-time colleague, producer Mike Downey, told Screen: “Agnieszka Holland is an extraordinarily brave and courageous filmmaker. Her fearlessness in the face of injustice and such vile and personal attacks from the uninformed Justice Minister, who hasn’t even seen the film, will not divert her from her mission to find the road to the truth. Messages of solidarity from Women in Film are a great comfort in such dangerous and difficult times.”
In its review ofGreen Border, Screen describes the film as a “superb multi-stranded drama.” Reviewer Wendy Ide wrote: “There has been no shortage of films that deal with Europe’s current refugee crisis over the last decade or so. Still, this picture, with its supremely confident handling of a fractured, fragmented structure and its twin driving forces of compassion and fury, is undoubtedly one of the best.
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