Green Border, Agnieszka Holland’s latest film, will hit theatres across the Netherlands on April 18. The world premiere took place September 5th last year at the Venice International Film Festival where it received the Festival’s Special Jury Prize while the Dutch premiere took place in February 2024 at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, where the film won the Audience Award. Agnieszka Holland’s work will be the theme of this year’s Amsterdam Polish Film Festival, taking place on 18th, 19th, and 20th October. The director, a three-time Oscar nominee, is known for her films that comment on European history, namely the confrontation between reality and declarations of fidelity to humanist values and human rights. She investigates how the slogans calling on justice, democracy, equality, and fraternity are implemented in practice. (Europa Europa, In Darkness, Mr. Jones – the latter was shown at the Amsterdam Polish Film Festival last year). This time, however, the script tells the story not of past events, but of the very recent ones, when the tragedy involving thousands of refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq Yemen, and Congo began on the Polish-Belarusian border in autumn 2021. Fleeing war, hunger, and poverty, or simply looking for a better life for themselves and their loved ones, they tried to enter the European Union. And they are still trying today. Precisely because of the relevance of the subject, the film gives the impression of a documentary, though it is a full-length feature film.
In Polish, the term green border relates to the act of illegal crossing of state borders. Quietly, preferably at night, high in the mountains or deep in the forest. The English translation of Green Border does not carry the same meaning. However, the name alludes to the location of the plot as well as to the choices the film’s characters have to make, balancing good with evil, humanity with cruelty.
The Polish-Belarusian borderland is a terrain of forest and swamps, an area that is difficult to cross in the dark, in cold weather, especially for families with small children, the elderly or the sick. It is worth recalling that it was the encouragement of Belarusian authorities that influenced the refugees’ decision to travel further west by crossing into Poland. This manipulation was an attempt to destabilize and cause chaos in the European Union countries.
The film has several threads, one tells the story of a Syrian family wanting to reach Sweden via Belarus and Poland. They do not suspect that after paying for tickets, visas, and guides, instead of reaching a safe place, they will end up in the middle of a dark forest, where they will slowly cease to be seen as human beings by the border guards on both sides, and where they will experience hunger, fear, suffering and humiliation. Here they will become Putin’s and Lukashenko’s hybrid weapons in a cynically provoked geopolitical crisis. Here they are at risk of death.
It is significant that the characters of those trying to cross into Poland were played by actors with personal refugee experiences (Jalal Altawil, Behi Djanati Atai, Mohamad Al Rashi, Dalia Naous), and many of the Polish actors invited to join the cast worked with activists helping refugees at the height of the border crisis (Maja Ostaszewska, Maciej Stuhr, Piotr Stramowski), which clearly adds to the authenticity of the story told in the film.
While Green Border has been received enthusiastically by critics around the world, in Poland right-wing politicians who were in power at that time, saw it as controversial, and the former Minister of Justice and Attorney General (the same man possesses both titles) accused Holland of slandering Poland in her film and of utilising propaganda modelled on that of Third Reich. An accusation that is ridiculous, since it is Agnieszka Holland who exposes in her films the mechanisms of totalitarian systems and their destructive impact on societies and individuals. Besides, it’s a very fair film that, in the context of the refugee crisis, shows the perspective and dilemmas of many parties – refugees, Border Guards, activists and border area residents.
Green Border is an important voice in the global debate, because although it is set in Poland, refugee issues affect the entire European Union and many regions on other continents. Similar tragedies continue to unfold in the Mediterranean, on the US-Mexico border, on the border of Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia. In this sense, the film’s message is universal. Successive waves of refugees are desperately trying to get to the rich, developed world. According to Agnieszka Holland, this is the beginning of a powerful process that will change the First World. How? That largely depends on the migration policies that the rich will develop.
A film that turns away from telling important stories loses its moral and artistic power, Agnieszka Holland said at the festival press conference.
In Venice, Green Border was received with a 15-minute standing ovation. How will the Dutch audience receive the film? We will find out very soon, on 18th April. It is not to be missed!
Monika Gimblett
