Two Gen Z film kids forced to make a movie about a dead peasant? Chaos ensues.
Two friends, eighteen-year-olds Kaśka and Magda, are graduating from a film high school. Between having fun and enjoying life, they still have to find time to prepare for the final exam that awaits them. They are tasked with preparing a film etude. When the teacher suggests a topic to them, they rebel at first. They wanted to make a film about socially important issues, about contemporary problems, they wanted to change the world, and here they get the story of some village girl from 100 years ago, who let herself be killed in a senseless way. Willing not to, they set off to Zabawa, where their heroine Karolina Kózkówna lived and died.
Acting
Marlena Burian's dual role creates haunting parallels
Direction
Regucki merges period and present with sneaky elegance
Director
Dariusz Regucki
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Karolina Kózkówna was a real 16-year-old beatified by John Paul II in 1987; her cult remains strong in rural Poland, making this essentially a Gen Z film about a Catholic meme their grandparents actually believe in.
The film-within-film structure mirrors Polish cinema's own struggle between socially engaged 'cinema of moral concern' and younger filmmakers' ironic distance.
PL
