POLISH DOCUMENTARIES IN THE PROGRAMME OF THE THESSALONIKI FESTIVAL
Polish titles are shaping up to make a serious mark at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival (5–15 March) – one of Europe’s foremost documentary festivals as well as an Academy Award-qualifying event. Two films have been selected for the main competition: "Candidates of Death" by Maciej Cuske, which will enjoy its world premiere in Thessaloniki, and "Closure" by Michał Marczak. Meanwhile, "The Queen and the Smokehouse" by Iga Lis, and two co-productions - "Traces" and "The Ground Beneath Our Feet" will screen in the Open Horizon section.
"Closure" began its festival journey earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was selected for competition in that prestigious event. The film is an intimate portrait of Daniel, who, following the disappearance of his teenage son, combs the waters of the Vistula River in search of any trace. Suspended between paralysing dread of the worst and a stubborn hope that the boy may still be alive, Daniel exists in a state of emotional stasis. Marczak – a filmmaker who is consistently refining his distinctive cinematic language at the intersection of documentary and fiction – allows the camera to 'drift' between the river’s calm surface and the dark secrets of its depths, constructing an image of grief as something unending, physical, and quietly obsessive.
By contrast, Maciej Cuske’s "Candidates of Death" grows out of an idea conceived more than a decade ago. Seeking to pull thirteen-year-old boys away from their screens, the director offers them to make a film together. What began as a summer pastime produced the first instalment of an amateur horror, and the project returned each year – evolving across successive chapters and subsequent years. Yet the camera records more than staged horror scenes: it observes the boys’ real transformation – adolescence, early triumphs and failures, familial fractures, psychological crises, and encounters with addiction. The result is a discreet chronicle of coming of age in which fiction and life intertwine into a single story.
Poland’s presence in Thessaloniki is made even stronger with two additional titles. "The Queen and the Smokehouse" by Iga Lis, screening in the Open Horizon section, follows Miecia, the charismatic owner of a legendary smokehouse in the seaside town of Łeba, known among the locals as the Queen of Łeba. The camera accompanies her at a turning point: health problems force her to reevaluate a life that has, for decades, been shaped entirely around work. Set against the backdrop of a summer resort, the film unfolds as a story of ambition, sacrifice, prestige, and the real price of determination.The same section will feature the Icelandic-Polish documentary ‘The Ground Beneath Our Feet’ by Yrsa Roca Fannberg, with cinematography by Wojciech Staroń and just awarded at Berlinale 'Traces' by Alisa Kovalenko and Marysia Nikitiuk.
The audience is also going to see "Trains" by Maciej J. Drygas, presented in the special section All the Memory of the World, dedicated to outstanding contemporary archival films and the theme of historical memory. Composed entirely of archival materials, the film pieces them together to create a poetic portrait of 20th-century Europe – along with its hopes, developments, and recurring traumas – while trains emerge as a figure of history in perpetual motion, carrying us through the landscapes of collective memory and its fractures.
Taken together, the Thessaloniki selection forms a compelling map of themes and cinematic languages within contemporary Polish documentary: from an intimate meditation on grief, through a long-term chronicle of growing up, to a portrait of labour, and an archival reflection on historical memory. Four films across such varied sections demonstrate the steady presence of Polish filmmakers at major international festivals as well as the striking diversity of artistic outlooks and authorial intentions they bring with them.
You can read more about other documentaries screening at the festival right here.