For Warsaw, Green Border, awarded in Venice, is “Nazi propaganda”

A special jury prize at the Venice Film Festival and a lively controversy in Poland. The Prime Minister and the head of the ruling party in Warsaw on Wednesday violently criticized the film by Polish director Agnieszka Holland Green Border which evokes the fate of migrants stuck in the exclusion zone on the Polish-Belarusian border.

The black and white film, whose Polish premiere is scheduled for Friday, depicts the condition of migrants, originating from Asia and the Middle East (Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen), seeking to enter Poland illegally from Belarus and often being rejected. by Polish border guards, assisted by the army. The group of protagonists tries multiple times to cross the border only to be constantly brought back into the exclusion zone. Beatings and beatings by guards are frequent. Other companions in misfortune died of cold or drowned in the adjoining marshes.

The leader of the nationalist Law and Justice party Jaroslaw Kaczynski denounced a “shameful and disgusting pamphlet which participates in what could be defined as the industry of contempt for Poland”, during a meeting of his party in Wroclaw. The aim of this film is “to insult the Polish uniform, to insult the Poles, to present the honest defense of the Polish border, the EU border, as a crime,” he added.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki judged for his part that this film “de facto announces the dismantling of the wall on the Belarusian border”, an imposing steel fence erected by the current government to curb illegal immigration.

The Ministers of Defense, Interior and Justice, meeting Wednesday within the National Security and Defense Committee, for their part adopted a resolution “defending the reputation of soldiers of the armed forces and other services that ensure border security on a daily basis. This resolution “takes on its full importance in the context of the presentation of Agnieszka Holland’s film. Film that attacks the honor and reputation of Poland, of the soldiers of the Polish army, of Polish border guards and police officers,” Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said at a press conference.

His colleague at Justice even compared Green Border to “Nazi propaganda”. ““During the Third Reich, the Germans produced propaganda films showing Poles as bandits and murderers. Today we have Agnieszka Holland. The 74-year-old filmmaker, nominated for an Oscar for Europa, Europa and who has Jewish roots, threatened to file a defamation suit if she did not obtain an apology. She also asked that the minister make a donation to an association that helps Holocaust survivors.

The Federation of European Directors has given its support to Agnieszka Holland. In an open letter on Monday, the Federation said it was “full of admiration” at the director’s “strength and courage in the face of the appalling attacks against her and the film in Poland.” And deplores: “Unlike the jury of the Venice Film Festival which watched Green Border until the end, the minister seems to have made his unfounded and defamatory remarks without watching the film. His comments constitute an insidious form of propaganda.”

The migration issue is one of the main themes of the electoral campaign ahead of the Polish legislative elections on October 15, with the ruling party highlighting its anti-immigration policy, while the opposition accuses it of in fact favoring entry of numerous migrants by issuing them thousands of visas.