Film Festival Rotterdam 2024: Green Border
By Tamara Kaňuchová | Culture | February 19, 2024
Cover Illustration: The Green Border film still. Agnieszka Holland / IFFR
Culture reporter Tamara Kaňuchová reports on Green Border, a must-watch from The International Film Festival Rotterdam.
Standing ovation, a full movie theater, people leaving the film in tears. In brief, that was the screening of Green Border by Agnieszka Holland at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. The movie left the festival with the Audience Choice Award at the 53rd edition of the festival.
The movie tells the parallel stories of a Syrian refugee family, activists, border police, and people who just happen to live near the borders of Belarus and Poland. The seemingly separate chapters intertwine and merge into a connected story, where one tragic event is surpassed by the next. In the middle of a struggle for basic survival for the refugee families or fighting the passivity and compliance of the border police, the viewer is occasionally surprised by small glimpses of joy and humanity. The choice to film in black and white stripped the movie of any sugarcoating, eliminating the calming green of the forest where much of the story took place, instead focusing on the very different struggles of each of the characters.
After the screening, a discussion with Holland followed. She touched upon the controversy the movie sparked in Poland right before the elections in September 2023. She recounted physical threats she received upon the premiere, but as is often the case with artists who dive into difficult topics, she laughed it off by expressing gratitude for the strong publicity the film had as a result of the hate. The difference in reception by the IFFR community and Polish right-wing proponents, who called it “Nazi propaganda”, is emblematic of widening polarization in Europe.
“My reception of the film is different now than it would have been if I had watched it in September. Now the film stands as a testament to everything that was wrong with our previous government, and to their nationalism and xenophobia and disrespect of people and democratic principles. I am glad it was well received here as it won the audience award,” said Michal Wasilewski, a Polish student living in Amsterdam who often visits film festivals around Europe.
“This film shows how bad the world can look if politicians with those ideas get into power, and also just showing refugees as real humans who have feelings, who have their life stories, who struggle to survive,” Michal added. “It’s something that audiences around the world can understand, and rethink their attitude towards the refugee crisis.”
IFFR showed 424 films in total, with 183 premieres between Jan. 25 and Feb. 4. The festival is known for an experimental selection with a few more commercial highlights.
“Other film festivals usually focus on the big artsy international films of the year, and Rotterdam has a couple of them, but their focus is on discovering that obscure stuff. That’s what is special about the Rotterdam Film Festival, and that’s why I like it even though you know a lot of those films are difficult to sit through and I suffer sometimes.
“What I enjoyed about Rotterdam is that although it has many cinemas, they’re all next to each other, so you can feel the vibe of the festival. People are going in and out and there are bars and places to sit and get a drink in the cinemas. [In] London especially, you can’t feel any festival vibe because London is such a massive city and it’s all scattered around and people just come and watch a film and then leave and there’s not any sense of the festival community. I think it’s difficult to achieve that in big cities. Rotterdam is pretty big but they achieve that,” said Michal.
Other awarded movies from the 53rd edition of IFFR include Rei by Tanaka Toshihiko (Tiger Award 2024), Kiss Wagon by Midhun Murali (Special Jury Award), and Flathead by Jaydon Martin (Special Jury Award).
Even if you are not into politics, I encourage you to go see Green Border in cinemas in April, when it starts screening in the Netherlands. It was not only a story of a failed system, but also a beautiful story of hope with small moments of unexpected humanity, irony, and family.
“We have the resources [to help], we just don’t want to use them,” Holland said during the discussion after the screening. The movie concludes with the beginning to a new cycle: the same story, but with Ukrainian refugees and a welcoming reception. It leaves the audience pondering the role of racism when selecting who we are willing to help. Or is it suggesting that history will repeat itself and pro-Russian media will dehumanize Ukrainian refugees in the same way? Is it both? The political game that is often exercised at the expense of refugee families, like in the movie, does not seem to be changing. Challenging the discourse through art can, however, start a discussion.
“We have the resources [to help], we just don’t want to use them.” — Agnieszka Holland
Tamara Kaňuchová is a university student in Amsterdam. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of The Amsterdammer.
