EXCLUSIVE
GREEN BORDER
Agnieszka Holland tackles the refugee crisis in this searing drama…
I think the refugees issue – and migrants in general – is one of the biggest issues and challenges for the future of Europe and probably for the world,’ says Agnieszka Holland (Mr Jones, Europa Europa). This comes after the 75-year-old Polish director has delivered her most controversial film in years, Green Border – a gruelling black-and-white drama that follows a Syrian family as they attempt to cross between Belarus and Poland. To say it hasn’t gone down well in certain parts of Poland is an understatement.
‘I was expecting the worst,’ Holland admits. ‘But I wasn’t expecting [the backlash] to be led directly and personally by the highest politicians.’
Before the recent Polish elections, justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, of the Catholic nationalist Sovereign Poland party, compared it to a Nazi Germany propaganda film ‘showing Poles as bandits and murderers’. Meanwhile, President Andrzej Duda also criticised the film as being ‘anti-Polish’.
‘It was a very heated time,’ Holland tells Teasers, speaking over Zoom.
‘I started to receive a lot of death threats.’ She began to take security guards with her as she criss-crossed the country promoting the film. ‘It was a new experience for me, to be afraid on the streets,’ she adds.
Thankfully, though, there has also been a positive response ever since Green Border won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival last year. ‘Overall, the film has been a wonderful experience,’ Holland states.
With the script scrupulously researched, the director spoke to journalists, activists, refugees and even border guards who were ‘traumatised by the tasks they had to execute’ – beating migrants and treating them ap
