Polish director Agnieszka Holland on her new film 'Green Border': 'We need courageous films'

euronews (in English)

Euronews Culture sits down with celebrated director Agnieszka Holland to talk about her powerful new film 'Green Border', the European refugee crisis, and the limits of cinema in facing human tragedy.

Transcript

00:00 [music]

00:12 [speaking Polish]

00:16 [music]

00:18 [speaking Polish]

00:24 [music]

00:29 [speaking Polish]

00:36 I think that the filmmakers are more and more aware that the world is in a very difficult place

00:44 and that there's a lot of tragedies and injustice and that as citizens or as artists

00:52 we feel that we have to face it and speak about it, but I don't see the big wave of unengaged cinema

01:02 flowing, you know, the cinema theaters.

01:08 But it's obvious that we are living in a very dangerous world

01:13 when a lot of political and human tragedies are going on.

01:18 And the last two years it was war in Ukraine and now Israel and Gaza

01:26 and we see many places on the map where something really tragic can happen.

01:33 [thunder]

01:35 [music]

01:38 [speaking Polish]

01:46 I expected that it would be that kind of reaction, but the scale, scope of that a little surprised me.

01:53 It was before the elections and the right-wing nationalistic government,

01:58 they believed that they can make some points, you know, by attacking me

02:03 and by creating the atmosphere of Poland being the fortress attacked by the enemy forces

02:10 and me on the front of those forces, but they overdid it.

02:16 The reaction of the people was opposite and I had a lot of signs of solidarity from my co-citizens,

02:23 but also it made the awareness of the movie very high and it helped our box office as well.

02:32 [music]

02:35 I always wanted to shoot in black and white, so here when I was fully independent it became possible,

02:45 but seriously I felt that it will help to control like aesthetic integrity,

02:53 visual integrity of the film for technical reasons and also for the artistic reasons.

03:00 And I wanted to find the balance between raw documentary style and some metaphorical dimension

03:08 and timeless dimension and black and white gave it.

03:11 So it was instinctive somehow, it means I didn't make the long, you know, the long analysis why,

03:18 and I think it proved to be right.

03:21 [thunder]

03:24 [speaking Polish]

03:28 [dog barking]

03:30 You know, I don't believe that one film can change the nature of the global politics,

03:36 but certainly it can wake up some consciences and speak to people's hearts

03:43 and we need much more than one film.

03:47 And I'm not speaking only about the cinematography, I'm speaking also about the political courage

03:53 and the honesty when facing the reality.

03:58 [music]

04:04 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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