An Ordinary Country
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“The Power Was in the Conversations, So I Knew I Had to Help the Viewer to Hear Them”: Tomasz Wolski on his Doc Fortnight-Debuting 1970
Tomasz Wolski’s 1970 is a riveting work of ingenious artistry. (And one of the highlights of last November’s IDFA, where it screened in the Best of Fests section.) It was during that chaotic titular year that food prices skyrocketed, and Gdansk’s striking shipyard workers would spark nationwide protests across Poland, which would culminate in the triumphal Solidarity movement a decade later — but not before the Communist leaders at the time decided to quash the threatening uprising with lethal force, calling in army units, tanks, and militiamen with guns. None of which we actually see in 1970. Indeed, the veteran Polish documentarian has […]
by Lauren Wissot on Feb 27, 2022 -
Visions du Réel 2020 (1): Intimate Distances, On a Clear Day You Can See the Revolution From Here, An Ordinary Country
Visions du Réel’s pivot to online-only festival has given me an unexpected new pool of films to sift through. Nearly everything that was supposed to be on the ground at a fest I’d normally never have the resources to attend is accessible online, and the streaming technology is holding up excellently. (AirDropping from laptop to TV, if you have that option, eliminates the watermark, so it’s about as good as online streaming gets.) On the public-facing side (I have no idea how that’s going), the festival went “live” on Saturday the 25th and wraps up on May 2nd. For those […]
by Vadim Rizov on Apr 28, 2020
