Green Border. 2024. Poland/Czech Republic/France/Belgium. Directed by Agnieszka Holland. Screenplay by Holland, Maciej Pisuk, Gabriela Lazarkiewicz. With Jalal Altawil, Maja Ostaszewska, Behi Djanati Atai. DCP courtesy Kino Lorber. In Polish, Arabic, English, French; English subtitles. 152 min.
Agnieszka Holland (Europa Europa, The Secret Garden, The Wire) has earned the violent condemnation of the fascists for her new film The Green Border, a complex, humane drama about Syrian refugees at the border between Ukraine and Poland. But Holland, who was the focus of a MoMA retrospective in 2008, has been a fearless voice of independent creativity for the entirety of her 50-year career. She and her family have been directly affected by her country’s history of Nazism, communism, and anti-Semitism, at times in tragic ways.