Wall

Anna, who lives in the countryside, leads a quiet, bleak life surrounded by nature and local drunks. She gets a chance to escape from her everyday existence thanks to an encounter with Joanna and Andrzej, a wealthy couple from Warsaw looking for the ruins of a church where a famous poet was once held captive. Anna becomes their guide and, in time, grows closer to her new friends. An innocent journey turns into a disturbing game based on class differences, and a dreamlike atmosphere sneaks into the realistic framework when Anna changes her behavior and starts stealing Joanna’s identity. In his full-length debut, Grudziecki breaks with the dominant urban view of the countryside that is a feature Polish cinema. He creates a subtle story—saturated with color and in the spirit of Antonioni—about unfulfilled ambitions, the struggle for self-actualization and the need for freedom, which can be destructive under certain circumstances.