Agnieszka Holland

Agnieszka Holland (1948) is a Polish film and television director and screenwriter. She began her career as assistant to directors Krzysztof Zanussi and Andrzej Wajda, and emigrated to France shortly before the 1981 imposition of the martial law in Poland.

Holland is best known for her films Europa Europa (1990), for which she received Golden Globe Award. The Secret Garden (1993), Angry Harvest and the Holocaust drama In Darkness. In 2017, she received Alfred Bauer Prize (Silver Bear) for her film Spoor at the Berlin International Film Festival.

In 2023, her film Green Border won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice International Film Festival.

Agnieszka Holland’s film about the events that have taken place on the border between Poland and Belarus is a lie that slanders the men and women protecting the border, writes Polish columnist Marzena Nykiel

The Polish film director, Agnieszka Holland, who has just taken her new film “Green Border” to the Venice Film Festival, is good at playing the role of persecuted artist because it opens doors at all progressive salons. The anti-Polish message of her film helps too.

At the same time, she objects to anyone taking issue with her or her work. While being prepared to accuse Polish border guards of being criminals, she threatens to sue Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro for his criticism of her.

Her film was controversial right from the outset. This is because its message fits into the Russian narrative by attacking Poland for defending its borders and the inhabitants of the border areas for supposed racism. The film has been made at a time when the international community has recognized that Belarus has deliberately weaponized migrants in order to weaken Europe and cause chaos for the benefit of Russia.

She has never hidden her hostility towards the right and the present government. She has compared migrants coming into Poland with the plight of the Jews during the Second World War and called border guards “criminals in uniform.” Repeatedly, she has asserted that there is no freedom in Poland. The picture she paints of Poles in her film is one of cowardly informers and people whose xenophobia is essentially a form of paranoia.

This is why there is outrage at the way she is manipulating what Lukashenko’s operation is about. Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro compared her film to the Third Reich’s propaganda films, which portrayed Poles as murderers and criminals.

Her tales of artists being persecuted in Poland are becoming tiresome. There is no persecution of artists in Poland. They are free to say what they like and use that freedom extensively. Criticism of Holland’s film is simply a statement of protest against lies and manipulation.

https://rmx.news/poland/polish-film-slanders-polish-border-guards-for-doing-their-job/