152 mins |
Rated
M (Violence, offensive language & cruelty)
Directed by Agnieszka Holland
Starring Agata Kulesza, Behi Djanati Atai, Piotr Stramowski, Tomasz Wlosok, Magdalena Poplawska, Maciej Stuhr, Maja Ostaszewska, Jalal Al Tawil, Jaśmina Polak, Marta Stalmierska, Mohamed Al Rashi, Jan Aleksandrowicz-Krasko, Dalia Naous, Roman Skorovskiy
Brutal, enraging and heartrending, Polish writer-director Agnieszka Holland’s controversial take on the Polish-Belarusian border crisis serves as a startling call to arms in the face of a little-seen humanitarian crisis
Agnieszka Holland, a filmmaker with a fascinating body of work that includes collaborating on Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colours: Blue, directing episodes of The Wire and winning international plaudits for films such as Europa Europa, has rarely been as strident or unflinching as with Green Border, a sprawling and terrifying depiction of the humanitarian crisis unfolding on the borders of Poland and Belarus. The titular border is in fact a stretch of densely forested territory, into which refugees from various parts of the world are unwillingly made political pawns of the hidden conflict between the European Union and Alexander Lukashenko, the authoritarian ruler of Belarus. Lured by propaganda of safe passage from Lukashenko, refugees are then bullied, assaulted and otherwise tossed into the freezing and treacherous border territory, only to be rounded up by Polish border guards and tossed back into Belarus, in an endlessly repeating cycle of pain and misery subjected upon some of the world’s most vulnerable citizens.
Read more...
Brutal, enraging and heartrending, Polish writer-director Agnieszka Holland’s controversial take on the Polish-Belarusian border crisis serves as a startling call to arms in the face of a little-seen humanitarian crisis
Agnieszka Holland, a filmmaker with a fascinating body of work that includes collaborating on Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colours: Blue, directing episodes of The Wire and winning international plaudits for films such as Europa Europa, has rarely been as strident or unflinching as with Green Border, a sprawling and terrifying depiction of the humanitarian crisis unfolding on the borders of Poland and Belarus. The titular border is in fact a stretch of densely forested territory, into which refugees from various parts of the world are unwillingly made political pawns of the hidden conflict between the European Union and Alexander Lukashenko, the authoritarian ruler of Belarus. Lured by propaganda of safe passage from Lukashenko, refugees are then bullied, assaulted and otherwise tossed into the freezing and treacherous border territory, only to be rounded up by Polish border guards and tossed back into Belarus, in an endlessly repeating cycle of pain and misery subjected upon some of the world’s most vulnerable citizens.