July 10-August 3, 2024
Green Border, Provincial Actors, A Woman Alone, Fever
doc films
1212 E 59th St
Chicago, IL 60637
July 10, 2024, 8:00 PM
A Woman Alone
2220 Arts + Archives
2220 Beverly Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90057
Polish director Agnieszka Holland has been one of global cinema’s most daring, versatile, and politically committed voices. She emerged as a significant filmmaker with a trilogy of powerful and unflinching films: her feature debut Provincial Actors (1978), Fever (1980), and A Woman Alone (1981). The latter was banned by authorities and could only be viewed at private and semi-private screenings through illegal copies. Following the declaration of martial law in 1981, Holland emigrated to France, where she continued her successful career, making films in France, Germany, England, and the United States. This is a rare opportunity to see Agnieszka Holland’s early trilogy in the U.S., along with a special screening of her newest work, Green Border (2023).
Green Border
Chicago: Wednesday, July 10 at 7:00 PM
Chicago: Saturday, July 13 at 4:00 PM
Dir. Agnieszka Holland. 2023, 152 min. Shot in stark black-and-white, this riveting thriller explores the intractable conflict from multiple perspectives. In an attempt to provoke Europe, refugees are lured to the border by Belarusian and Russian propaganda promising easy passage to the EU. Pawns in this hidden war, the lives of Julia, a newly minted activist who has given up her comfortable life, Jan, a young border guard, and a Syrian refugee family intertwine.
Provincial Actors
Chicago: Saturday, July 20 at 4:00 PM
Dir. Agnieszka Holland. 1979, 121 mins. Poland. In Polish with English subtitles. DCP. With Tadeusz Huk, Halina Labonarska. Holland first gained early recognition with this powerful, claustrophobic study of the tensions and conflicts among the members of a minor theatrical troupe in a small town near Warsaw. Provincial Actors employ Brechtian distancing devices to intensify an atmosphere and searingly explore her characters’ predicaments. It’s a film that reflects Holland’s love of theater, abhorrence of censorship, ambiguity towards relationships, and overall mischievous sense of humor while avoiding the clichés of the backstage genre.
Fever
Chicago: Saturday, July 27 at 4:00 PM
Dir. Agnieszka Holland. 1981, 122 mins. Poland. In Polish with English subtitles. 2K restored DCP. With Olgierd Lukaszewicz, Barbara Grabowska, Adam Ferency. Holland’s tense, gripping 1905-set drama depicts a group of underground Polish anarchists as they arm themselves and build bombs to resist the incoming Russian Tsarist oppression. Lead actress Grabowska won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 1981 Berlin International Film Festival for the film, yet the film was nevertheless banned in Poland after martial law was declared later that year. Fever was the second to last film Holland made in her home country before being exiled to France.
A Woman Alone
Los Angeles: July 10 at 8:00 PM
Chicago: Saturday, August 3 at 4:00 PM
Dir. Agnieszka Holland. 1987, 92 mins. Poland. In Polish with English subtitles. DCP. With Maria Chwalibóg, Bogusław Linda, Paweł Witczak. Holland’s last film, made in her home country before she self-exiled to France, is a thinly veiled critique of the communist totalitarian system that was banned in Poland. In this powerful character portrait, a woman (a brilliant performance by Chwalibóg) struggles to raise her eight-year-old son with little support in a small town. This nuanced, finely crafted film is a quietly startling vision of communist government bureaucracy, detailing its stifling impact on the community’s and individuals’ daily lives.
Agnieszka Holland, born on November 28, 1948, is a renowned Polish film and television director and screenwriter. Over six decades, Holland has established herself as one of global cinema’s most daring, versatile, and politically committed voices. She is best known for her films Europa Europa (1990), for which she received a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, The Secret Garden (1993), Angry Harvest (1985), and the Holocaust drama In Darkness (2011), the last two of which were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2017, Holland received the Alfred Bauer Prize (Silver Bear) at the Berlin International Film Festival for her film Spoor (2017). In 2020, she was elected President of the European Film Academy. Most recently, her film Green Border (2023) won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice International Film Festival.
Lead image: A still from Agnieszka Holland’s A Woman Alone
Bio image: Martin Kraft, Wikimedia Commons
