Forest / Las
country, year
Poland, Czech Republic, 2024
genre
documentary
running time
84′
directed by
Lidia Duda
languages
Polish
subtitles
Slovene subtitles
about the film
Asia and Marek moved to the edge of one of the oldest forests in Europe, on the eastern Polish border. For their children, the forest is not only a playground, but also a second home. But when the Polish border becomes one of the centres of the refugee crisis, refugees, unwanted everywhere, are stranded at the border, in the forest. The idyllic family life is over, and questions of solidarity and personal responsibility come to the fore.
what was said about the film
“The state puts pressure on people not to help. Pushbacks are legal. I have found that I have a problem with this. Because politics in my understanding is a concrete person that I see. It’s a family in the middle of the wilderness, it’s a person who is malnourished, it’s a family with children. It is different to talk about politics on a human level, and it seemed to me that the state has abandoned the citizens, it has put the problem of ‘people on the move’ on them. And, as a result, instead of thanking them for saving the country with this humanitarian aid, it is directing criminal charges against them. /…/ I am full of admiration for the people who have decided to help, especially the people of Podlasie. They had to reconcile this with their normal lives, with their children, with school, with work. At some point, Asia and Marek lost their lives. At a certain moment, when this area was closed, everything revolved around the calls from the forest. Someone needed help, someone was sick, someone was hungry, someone was freezing, a woman was dying in the forest … And they went to help, and what they saw in that wilderness – which may sound very sterile and nice, that they went to help, there are images behind those words – a woman dying, children hypothermic, people with open fractures. These are images that stay in your head and you can’t get rid of them.”
– Lidia Duda for TVP info
trailer