De Balie x Amsterdam Polish Film Festival

The third edition of the Amsterdam Polish Film Festival (October 18-20), organised in collaboration with Polish Culture NL, will focus on Agnieszka Holland. With her poignant, empathetic, and often politically charged films, Holland (1948) is one of the greatest contemporary filmmakers in Polish and European cinema.

Agnieszka Holland’s films often portray characters who face moral dilemmas against a backdrop of social unrest. With her most recent film, Green Border (2023), Holland provoked the anger of the then-Polish PiS government. In this film, which won the Special Jury Prize in Venice, Holland sheds light on the Polish pushbacks of migrants from Belarus. While the Polish president called for a boycott, critics and audiences – Polish and world wide – embraced this deeply human film.

Agnieszka Holland is a versatile filmmaker with a keen eye for social issues and historical events. She is a well-established name in European arthouse cinema, but just as acclaimed in Hollywood. Holland has received numerous international awards and has been nominated for an Oscar three times.

The festival lasts three days. You can buy a ticket per day or for the whole festival.

On Friday, October 18, two of Holland’s earlier films will be shown: Lonely Woman (1981), about life in communist Poland, and Fever (1980), a period piece about Polish anarchists in 1905. The films will be put into context by our curator Stefan Malešević and researcher Barbara Malak-Minkiewicz. More info and tickets.

On Saturday, October 19, we will screen the internationally acclaimed refugee drama Green Border (2023), which focuses on the Polish-Belarusian border, where Syrian migrants are used as pawns in a cynical political game. After the film, there will be discussions with Agnieszka Holland about her life and work, as well as with migration expert Hein de Haas and Belgian actress Joely Mbundu. More info and tickets.

On Sunday, October 20, we will screen two more recent films by Holland: the Holocaust drama In Darkness (2011) and Spoor (2017), Holland’s adaptation of Olga Tokarczuk’s novel Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, in which an eccentric woman takes on the local hunting association. The films will be put into context by journalist Dore van Duivenbode and writer Bibi Dumon Tak. More info and tickets.