HOMAGE to Angieszka Holland

The IFFMH’s HOMAGE pays tribute to leading figures in the international film industry. Previous guests of honour have included legendary director Claude Lelouch (2021), Belgian cinematographer Benoît Debie (2022) and, last year, French cinematographer Agnès Godard. This year, the festival is honouring Polish director Agnieszka Holland, a chronicler of contemporary European history and one of the most significant voices in political cinema.

Agnieszka Holland was born in Warsaw in 1948. The trauma of the Second World War and life under Stalinism are interwoven with her family history. Holland’s Catholic mother belonged to the resistance during the war and her Jewish father’s parents were murdered in the ghetto. Greatly fascinated by Czech cinema as a young woman, Holland studied film directing at the Prague Film University. Her experience of being arrested for demonstrating during the Prague Spring resulted in powerlessness, revolution and resistance becoming central themes in her work.

At the HOMAGE at the 73rd IFFMH, three key works from Holland’s oeuvre are waiting to be rediscovered on the big screen: ›Green Border‹ (2023), ›Olivier, Olivier‹ (1992) and ›Europa Europa‹ (1990). In a master class at Cinema Quadrat on 14 November, Holland will discuss her visions of cinema, explain why the perspective of young people is so important in her films and, last but not least, share her view of current events and the state that Europe is in.