Returning with one of her most acclaimed films in years, Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border premiered at Venice Film Festival last fall where it picked up a Special Jury Prize. Now, the harrowing, deeply humanistic account of the migrant journey between Belarus and Poland, will arrive in U.S. theaters starting June 21 from Kino Lorber and the first trailer has arrived.
Here’s the synopsis: “In the treacherous and swampy forests that make up the so-called “green border” between Belarus and Poland, refugees from the Middle East and Africa are lured by government propaganda promising easy passage to the European Union. Unable to cross into Europe and unable to turn back, they find themselves trapped in a rapidly escalating geopolitical stand-off. An unflinching depiction of the migrant crisis captured in stark black-and-white, this riveting film explores the intractable issue from multiple perspectives: a Syrian family fleeing ISIS caught between cruel border guards in both countries; young guards instructed to brutalize and reject the migrants; and activists who aid the refugees at great personal risk.”
Lena Wilson said in her NYFF review, “Green Border focuses on the treatment of migrants trying to cross from Belarus to Poland so they can find asylum in the European Union. As a result, Holland is now on the shit list of nearly every high-ranking Polish politician, from the president to the Minister of Science and Higher Education. What a shame they’re so blinded by their station that they can’t even appreciate magnificent works of art. Green Border is a riveting, finely crafted, deeply human accounting of the atrocities we make permissible in the name of nationalism.”
See the trailer below along with a pair of posters.
Green Border opens in theaters on June 21.