“In Darkness” by Agnieszka Holland: Polish Oscar candidate

“In Darkness” will be the Oscar candidate in the “Best Foreign Language Film” category. The candidate was chosen by the Oscar Commission appointed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Bogdan Zdrojewski.

The film “In Darkness” is a Polish-German-Canadian co-production starring Robert Więckiewicz. It presents the story of the Pole Leopold Socha, who was a pilferer before the Second World War and who decided to selflessly hide Jews who had escaped from the Lviv ghetto during the Nazi occupation.

“The Holocaust challenges art – explains Agnieszka Holland. – This is my third film returning to the time of the Holocaust, which still remains a great challenge. We still don’t know the answer to most questions. For me – for personal reasons, among others – the Polish-Jewish dramas were especially important. Almost all my father’s family was killed in the Warsaw ghetto and my mother, as a really young girl, together with her friends rescued two escapees from the ghetto and was honored with the title of the Righteous Among the Nations”.

The director emphasizes the fact that in her newest film she does not present ideas, but “ordinary men who can be either cruel or heroic, sometimes – both at the same time”.

According to the chairman of the Oscar Commission, the director Dariusz Gajewski, Holland told the story of Leopold Socha “without being biased, without taking sides. There is no dominating perspective – neither the Polish, nor the Jewish or the Polish one.

The cinema premiere of the film “In Darkness” will be held in September 2011.