NO ESCAPE

GREEN BORDER

Agnieszka Holland tackles the refugee crisis in this searing drama…

The film follows a Syrian family’s desperate attempt to get to Europe

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 appallingly. When it came to filming, Holland used professional actors, although some had experiences of the crisis. ‘They’ve been very motivated, they wanted to do it… they had the chance to give a voice to the voiceless and to give faces to the faceless.’

‘I started to receive a lot of death threats’

AGNIESZKA HOLLAND

Although Holland understands the ‘fear’ that causes concern over refugees, she wants audiences to see the perspective of those crossing into the EU. ‘They don’t care who helps them to pass the borders. If it’s the smugglers or whoever, they just want to reach a safe place and have a life with dignity. It’s the only aim they have.’

While Holland is now shooting her new film, about the life of Czech author Franz Kafka, it’s intriguing to ask what gives the director her courage to keep making films like Green Border. ‘I don’t know,’ she shrugs. ‘I think you are just born like that! I really believe that the activist becomes the hero of our times. I’m very disappointed by the political class. The political class lost courage. But democracy doesn’t give the tools any more to stand for what you believe in.’

GREEN BORDER OPENS IN CINEMAS ON 21 JUNE.