Michalina Olszanska

The Lure

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Gold and Silver

So how about a horror movie featuring sexy mermaids who become disco singers in 1980s Poland? The Lure (Córki dancingu) is the film you’re after, so grabby as a concept that it went straight into the Criterion Collection after its release in 2015, which isn’t bad considering that’s where Kurosawa, Truffaut, Bergman and Claire Denis all hang out together. In the words of Criterion, this is where “important classic and contemporary films” are to be found. It’s also not bad for a debut feature, by Agnieszka Smoczyńska, who’s recently grabbed more attention with her The Silent Twins, another story of two isolated sisters leaning on each other for support. But not like this. … Read more

My Name Is Sara

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Manya aka Sara

My Name Is Sara also goes by the title The Occupation – two separate titles for one film setting out to tell two distinct stories. There’s another bit of splittage going on as well. It’s a film shot in Poland with a Polish cast and crew but everyone in it speaks in English, regardless of how well they can actually do that. Into the story, which is a true one, of a Jewish girl called Sara Guralnik escaping with her brother from a Polish ghetto in 1942 and then trying to make it through the rest of the war while hiding out inside the borders of neighbouring Ukraine – there are the Nazis, … Read more