An Ordinary Country

Poland2020documentary53'Konkurs dokumentalny (2020)Konkurs polski (2020)

Controlled conversations, recording with hidden cameras, dirty records of interrogations and recruitment attempts as well as video tutorials for the officers of the security service – all of these materials are employed to portray the monitored life in Poland under communism. Sometimes grotesque, this picture is underpinned by horror, escalating intuitively with every minute. The dramatic culmination is when the Big Brother is not just watching but violating the intimacy of an ordinary citizen. Before us, there is a terrifying communist panopticon which keeps spying on and recording itself.

directed by
Tomasz Wolski, portret reżysera
Tomasz Wolski

Film director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer and editor. He was born in 1977. He is a graduate of Journalism at the Jagiellonian University and of a documentary course from the Wajda School. He has taken part in the Berlinale Talent Campus and the Berlin Today Award. He has made several documentaries, which include The Clinic (2006), "The Lucky Ones" (2009), "Doctors" (2011), "The Palace" (2012), "Not for Everyone" (2012), "Festival" (2017) and "An Ordinary Country" (2020, the winner of the Golden Hobby Horse at the 60KFF). As a editor he has worked with Sergei Loznitsa on his documentaries "Babi Yar. Context" and "The Kiev Trial". He is a co-director (with Piotr Pawlus) of "In Ukraine" which premiered at Berlinale in 2023. A member of the Polish Filmmakers Association, Polish and European Film Academies, and since 2024, a member of the Council of the Polish Film Institute.

script
Tomasz Wolski
sound
Marcin Lenarczyk
editing
Tomasz Wolski
production
Anna Gawlita (Kijora Film)
Photo
Kadr z filmu An Ordinary Country
Trailer