International Documentary Film Festival
March 30 - April 6, 2025
Kaptol Boutique Cinema, Zagreb

Forest (Las)

Lidia Duda

Forest

After graduating from university, Asia and Marek bought an old house near the eastern border of Poland. There, in the oldest forest of Europe, the couple created their own paradise over the years  a place where their children can grow up safely, away from the problems of today's world. For Marysia, Ignacy and Franek the forest became their second home. Yet one day, things change as strangers show up. Refugees, unwelcome both in Poland and Belarus. Despite controversial border laws, the whole family helps those who are in need. The new reality shows its impact on the children's world: they no longer play knights and princesses, but refugees and border guards. The growing humanitarian crisis on the EU border entered the family's safe place, leaving nothing as it used to be.

Poland, Czech Republic 2024, '84

DIRECTOR: Lidia Duda

SCENARIO: Lidia Duda

CAMERA: Zuzanna Zachara-Hassairi

MONTAGE: Lidia Duda, Filip Stanisławski

PRODUCERS: Patryk Sielecki, Michał Ostatkiewicz, Aleksandra Ostatkiewicz

PRODUCTION: Lumisenta Film Foundation

FESTIVALS & AWARDS:

Thessaloniki DF: Silver Alexander Award (2024)
Ji.hlava (2024)
Shanghai IFF (2024)
Munich IDF (2024)
Krakow FF (2024)
DOC NYC (2024)

Lidia Duda

Lidia Duda

Lidia Duda is a director and writer of documentary films. Her latest film Fledglings (2022) received the Marco Zucchi Award in the Semaine de la critique section at the 2022 Locarno Film Festival as well as four awards at the Millennium Docs Against the Gravity Film Festival in Poland. She is a two-time winner of the Grand Prix at the Krakow Film Festival for Hercules (2005) and Entangled (2012). She also won Grand Prix awards at film festivals in Chicago, New York, Houston, Istanbul, Mexico, Moscow, Banff, Guangzhou and Prague. For her documentary U nas w Pietraszach (In Our Village Pietrasze, 2002), Lidia Duda was awarded the Grand Prix. A member of the Polish Filmmakers Association, the Polish Film Academy and the Documentary Directors Guild of Poland.

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