Friday, October 25

Polish director calls for apology from justice minister for evaluating her movie to Nazi propaganda

WARSAW, Poland — Film director Agnieszka Holland demanded an apology from Poland’s justice minister after he in contrast her newest movie, which explores the migration disaster on the Poland-Belarus border, to Nazi propaganda.

Holland stated Wednesday that she deliberate to carry defamation costs in opposition to Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro except she receives an apology inside seven days. She additionally demanded that he make a charitable donation of fifty,000 Polish zlotys ($11,600) to an affiliation that helps Holocaust survivors.

Holland’s characteristic movie, “Green Border,” explores a migration disaster that has performed out alongside Poland’s border with Belarus over the previous two years. It takes a sympathetic method towards the migrants from the Middle East and Africa who acquired caught up as pawns in a geopolitical standoff.



It additionally appears to be like critically on the manner Poland’s safety companies pushed again migrants who had been lured to the border by Belarus, an ally of Russia.

Ziobro slammed the movie earlier this week, saying: “In the Third Reich, the Germans produced propaganda films showing Poles as bandits and murderers. Today, they have Agnieszka Holland for that.”

He made his touch upon the social platform X, previously Twitter, on Monday, a day earlier than the movie had its world premiere on the Venice Film Festival.

Holland famous in a press release that Ziobro, who serves as prosecutor common in addition to justice minster, commented on her movie with out having seen it and that she believed his phrases amounted to defamation, calling them “despicable.”

“I cannot remain indifferent to such an open and brutal attack by a person who holds the very important constitutional position of minister of justice and prosecutor general in Poland,” she wrote in a press release from Venice dated Wednesday however printed in Poland on Thursday.

Holland stated the comparability to Nazi propaganda was offensive due to what Poland suffered underneath Nazi occupation throughout World War II and given her personal background. She famous that she was each the daughter of a liaison within the Warsaw Uprising, town’s 1944 revolt in opposition to the occupying Nazi German forces, and the granddaughter of Holocaust victims.

“In our country, which experienced death, cruelty and the suffering of millions during World War II, a comparison to the perpetrators of these events is extremely painful and requires an appropriate response,” Holland stated.

Holland’s movie dramatizes the migration tragedy that unfolded within the “green border” of swamps and forests between Belarus and Poland. The story reveals the intertwining lives of a Polish activist, a younger Polish border guard and a Syrian household.

The director stated her movie aimed to point out the issue of migration from completely different angles, together with “wonderful Poles helping others despite threats.”

“Our film is an attempt to give a voice to those who have no voice. The problem of migration will grow, and soon it will affect each of us. Meanwhile, in Poland it is presented one-sidedly, exclusively from the perspective of government propaganda, which is interested in only one thing — to scare our society,” Holland stated.

Poland is making ready for an Oct. 15 election wherein the right-wing authorities is in search of an unprecedented third time period. The ruling get together, Law and Justice, has centered on migration and safety, promising to maintain the nation secure amid Russia’s aggression in opposition to Ukraine and the makes an attempt by Belarus to encourage migrants to enter into Poland.

The ruling get together additionally voted to carry a referendum alongside the election with 4 questions, one in all which asks voters in the event that they “support the admission of thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa.”

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