Forest

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THEY CREATED THEIR OWN PARADISE, BUT ONE DAY BIG POLITICS KNOCKED ON THEIR DOOR.

2024_DOCUMENTARY_FILM

Thessaloniki IDF 2024 / World Premiere

Shanghai IFF 2024 / SIFF Documentaries

DOC NYC 2024 / International Competition

MakeDox 2024

DOK.fest München 2024

IceDocs - Iceland DFF 2024

Ji.hlava IDFF 2024 / Czech Joy

Millennium Docs Against Gravity 2024

Krakow Film Festival 2024

CROSSING EUROPE Filmfestival Linz 2024

If we don’t react, who will? Our politicians?!

Refugees, unwelcome in Poland and Belarus, wander through the forest. Freezing cold, sick, hungry — some seek solace, while others drift without hope. Asia and Marek, take on the burden of these desperate people, while upending their carefully constructed family life.  

The house transforms into a makeshift depository for donated items to aid refugees, and the family actively engages in helping them — an act which is banned from Polish law. The children’s play now consists of roles like refugees and Border Guards. 

Once you enter this forest, darkness is all you can see.

As the family grapples with good and evil, the children fail to comprehend why their mother is distraught despite their family’s efforts to help. And as winter approaches, the family Asia and Marek must decide: to help or not to help. 

Director Lidia Duda is an established Polish filmmaker whose well-received “Fledglings” about visually impaired children premiered at Locarno in 2023, scoring the Marco Zucchi Award.

They saw terrible things and afterwards, still had to go home and put her children to bed, singing them lullabies.

“I’m not interested in big politics… What I try to find in my protagonists is the strength of character and the strength of family…I’d like to tell a story that will give hope to the viewers that they can also find strength within themselves and react to evil and human suffering when they enter their world.”

The project started in August 2021 when thousands of refugees tried to cross the Polish-Belarusian border. They helped as much as they could — however, new refugees kept emerging. First, those ‘unwelcome’ refugees from the Congo, Syria, Iraq… followed by those ‘welcome’ from Ukraine. The family felt more and more trapped in this situation and helpless in the face of the refugee wave. As a result, the situation, which at first seemed to be a problem of refugees only, penetrated the family’s life and changed it forever.

In the summer of 2022, our protagonists stopped helping refugees. They tried to forget about them, saying that now it’s warm and easier for people living in the forest. However, winter is coming and the despair in the woods begins again. The cold won’t spare anyone: men, women, or children.

Help or not to help?

During the summer of 2021, in an effort to exert pressure on the European Union, the regime led by Alexander Lukashenko lured in refugees, primarily from East Africa, the Middle East, and Afghanistan, promising them a straightforward entry into the EU. These individuals were transported and directed toward the borders with Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia. In response, the Polish government disseminated anti-migrant propaganda and heightened the alert status of the Border Guard. 

The Border Guards, in violation of the law, forced refugees back into the forest and Belarus. Following the establishment of an exclusion zone, access to the area became restricted — preventing even journalists and doctors from entering. Activists were locked out, and local communities were thrust into a grave predicament.

The situation at the Polish-Belarusian border shows no signs of resolution, and has increasingly been overshadowed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Forest had a World Premiere at International Competition of Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival 2024.

NOTHING IS THE SAME ANYMORE.