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Exclusive: Jewish streamer ChaiFlicks has licensed Oscar-winning Paweł Pawlikowski movie Ida and a wealth of other titles following a deal with Music Box Films.

The SVoD platform that specializes in Jewish storytelling has licensed 15 titles from the Chicago-based outfit, including Golden Globe-nominated Gett: The Trial of Vivane Amsalem. Other titles include Memoir of War, Golden Voices and Aida’s Secrets.

The main draw is Pawlikowski’s Ida, which won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film in 2015 and follows a young Polish woman (Agata Trzebuchowska) as she prepares to take vows as a Catholic nun. The orphaned protagonist then discovers that her parents were Jewish, and joins her only surviving relative on a road trip to learn the fate of their families.

ChaiFlicks has more than 3,000 hours of Jewish films, TV series, and documentaries, and plans to launch Ida and the other new titles on its platform later this year.

Jan Komasa’s Oscar-nominated film about a fake priest dominated the Polish Film Awards, while Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite was voted Best European Film. Unlike the American Academy’s ceremony held last month — where Jan Komasa’s Corpus Christi was a Best International Film hopeful — the 22nd Polish Film Awards gala had very few surprises in store. The only twist was the first ex aequo verdict in the Best Supporting Actor category, but more because of the baffling way it was presented than anything else. Agata Trzebuchowska, announced only one winner, Łukasz Simlat (Corpus Christi), before the second winner Robert Więckiewicz (The Coldest Game) was called to the stage a few minutes later. Still, it was far from the infamous 2017 Oscars La La Land/Moonlight debacle. That rainy Warsaw evening, as actor Maciej Stuhr, the host of the...

Direct from Sundance Blogs:

Come Swim

Credit: John GuleserianNight Shift

Credit: Estee OchoaThe Robbery

Credit: Lowell Meyer

Sixty-eight short films will complement the lineup of longer fare at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. The short film slate aligns thematically with other Festival categories, including Midnight and The New Climate, the Festival’s new programming strand highlighting climate change and the environment. The Festival hosts screenings in Park City, Salt Lake City and at Sundance Mountain Resort January 19–29.

The Institute’s support for short films extends internationally and year-round. Select Festival short films are presented as a traveling program at over 50 theaters in the U.S. and Canada each year, and short films and filmmakers take part in regional Master Classes geared towards supporting emerging shorts-makers in several cities. Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program, supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and in partnership with The Guardian and The New York Times’ Op-Docs,...

With their feature film line-up now set (see here and here), Sundance have unveiled their 2017 short program, which in past years has included such gems as World of Tomorrow, Glove, and Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash. This year’s line-up includes Kristen Stewart‘s Come Swim, featuring a score by St. Vincent, as well as Project X, the latest film from Citizenfour director Laura Poitras.

Check out the full line-up of 68 films below, along with the first look at Stewart’s film.

U.S. Narrative Short Films

American Paradise / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Joe Talbot) — A desperate man in Trump’s America tries to shift his luck with the perfect crime in this story inspired by true events.

Cecile on the Phone / U.S.A. (Director: Annabelle Dexter-Jones, Screenwriters: Annabelle Dexter-Jones, Ellen Greenberg) — Overwhelmed by doubt and confusion after her ex-boyfriend’s return to New York, Cecile embarks on...

Sundance Film Festival just gave attendees 68 new reasons to look forward to the January event with the announcement of their short films program that features several titles for genre fans to keep an eye on, including the creature short feature Kaiju Bunraku, the suburban satanic cult-centric Fucking Bunnies, and the post-apocalyptic Dawn of the Deaf.

We have the official press release below with full details, and stay tuned to Daily Dead for our upcoming coverage of the festival.

Press Release: Park City, Ut — Sixty-eight short films, announced today, will complement the lineup of longer fare at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. The short film slate aligns thematically with other Festival categories, including Midnight and The New Climate, the Festival’s new programming strand highlighting climate change and the environment. The Festival hosts screenings in Park City, Salt Lake City and at Sundance Mountain Resort January 19-29.

The Institute’s support for...

Short film lovers, never fear, the Sundance Film Festival has not forgotten about you. After rolling out their various feature categories, the annual winter festival has now announced their full short film lineup, including narratives, documentaries, animated offerings and midnight chillers. The slate is packed with picks from such diverse filmmakers as Laura Poitras (who will screen her latest, “Project X,” co-directed with Henrik Moltke, at the festival) and Kristen Stewart (who will make her directorial debut with “Come Swim”), along with Annabelle Dexter-Jones, Zachary Zezima, E.G. Bailey and many, many more.

If you’re hoping to find the next big thing in independent filmmaking, start here. Among the shorts the festival has shown in recent years are “World of Tomorrow,” “Thunder Road,” “Whiplash,” “The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom” and “Gregory Go Boom.”

Read More: Sundance 2017 Announces Competition and Next Lineups, Including Returning Favorites and Major Contenders

Mike Plante,...

A beautiful film, and a mysterious one. I don’t quite know what to make of it, but I have been seduced by its evasive intrigue. I’m “biast” (pro): nothing

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

Ida is a beautiful film, and a mysterious one. Two viewings have not given me the first inkling of what to make of it, except to realize that I have been seduced by its evasive intrigue.

Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski (who wrote the screenplay with Rebecca Lenkiewicz) returns to his native Poland for the first time onscreen with a story of two women: 20ish orphan Ida (Agata Trzebuchowska), who has been raised by nuns and is about to take vows herself, and her aunt, 40s-ish Wanda (Agata Kulesza), her only living relative whom the Mother Superior insists Ida meet before making her lifelong commitment to the order.

One of the bigger surprises for many (ahem, not all) people when the Oscar nominations were announced was the inclusion of a little Polish indie called "Ida" in the Best Cinematography category. But the story of how the film came to feature two DPs — Ryszard Lenczewski and Lukasz Zal — is an interesting one itself. Unfortunately, Lenczewski has been unavailable lately, but I wrangled up an email chat with Zal about his good fortune. (That's him on the right next to director Pawel Pawlikowski in the photo at the top.) And it's double the excitement for him, too, as he shot the Oscar-nominated documentary short "Joanna" as well. The Polish Film School is taking over! Seriously, though, it was a truly unexpected moment for Zal, of course, to land an Oscar nomination for his feature debut, particularly after the unusual circumstances that led to his assuming the role of cinematographer. What's more,...

"There's more in it than just something about Polish history, all sorts of things about faith, identity, love," says director Pawel Pawlikowski, explaining why his film "Ida," Oscar-nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, is more personal than political (watch our complete video interview below). "I also wanted to make a film in Poland and set it in the early '60s, which is a time I find I'm very close to. I was a kid at the time, quite young, absorbing the world quite intensely." -Break- 'Leviathan's' Andrey Zvyagintsev, Alexander Rodnyansky on 'radical' backlash in Russia [Exclusive Video] The film tells the story of a novice nun (Agata Trzebuchowska), who discovers her Jewish heritage and learns what happened to her family during the Nazi occupation of Poland during World War II. But the Polish Anti-Defamation League has claimed the film is "anti-Polish" and may lead vie...

The 2014 RopeofSilicon Movie Awards It's hard to believe I've been doing my own brand of "awards" for seven years now. Perhaps because film awards seem to have grown increasingly irrelevant, but when you watch as many movies as I do per year it is nice to sit back and remember the finer moments of the past year, especially when we're stuck in the doldrums of the early year releases, dealing with the likes of Jupiter Ascending, Taken 3, Blackhat and Seventh Son. So, as we are now only a few weeks away from the 87th Annual Academy Awards, it's time to hand out the 2014 RopeofSilicon Movie Awards, looking back on a year that turned out to be much better than it initially appeared it may be. A hard question I'm trying to answer is just what kind of year in movies was 2014c Like previous years, blockbusters came and went.

Spoiler alert, but Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) was, in fact, not my favorite film of the year. I figured I should just get that out of the way at the start for those of you who feared I might have the same #1 film as Brad and Mike, both of whom listed Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's latest as their favorite film from 2014. Don't get me wrong, I really liked Birdman, but in a surprise to even myself, it didn't make my list, which I think you can pretty much chalk up to the surprisingly good year 2014 wound up being. I was certainly among the scoffers last fall about it being a bit of down year, and just a month or so ago I was of the opinion 2014 offered a lot of films to like, but very few to love. After going through and finalizing my list, I'd like to retract that statement.

I think a good way to judge whether or not you thought the past year of film was a good one is how difficult it was to compile your top ten of the year. Did you struggle to fill spots or were there a bunch of films vying for positionsc 2014 ended up in the latter category for me, which is a very good thing. I was impressed with the slate of films released this year, mainly from the smaller side. Major Hollywood studios did manage to crank out a couple of high quality, blockbuster entertainments, like Edge of Tomorrow and X-Men: Days of Future Past, which, in my opinion, is two more than they usually produce. Obviously, we are not far away enough to know how remembered 2014 will be, and if it is, for whatc Will people remember this as the year Marvel could put out whatever and people would...

Golden Globes are considering “Ida” directed and co-written by Pawel Pawlikowski (“Last Resort", “My Summer of Love"), a moving and intimate drama about a young novitiate nun in 1960's Poland who, on the verge of taking her vows, discovers a dark family secret dating from the terrible years of the Nazi occupation. The film premiered at the 2013 Telluride Film Festival and was also featured at the 2013 Toronto and 2014 Sundance film festivals.

“Ida” won the 2014 European Film Awards for Best European Film, Best European Director, Best European Screenwriter, Best European Cinematographer and the People’s Choice Award. The film was named the Best Foreign Language Film by the New York Film Critics Circle and won the 2014 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards for Best Supporting Actress (Agata Kulesza) and Best Foreign Language Film. "Ida" is also nominated for the 2014 Film Independent Spirit Award for Best International Film. It's also the Polish Oscar® entry and has made the 9-film shortlist.

Below is my interview with director Pawel Pawlikowski published last year prior to the film theatrical release:

I happen to love Jewish films and so when I saw "Ida" was playing in Toronto, it was first on my list of “must-sees”. However, I am no longer an “acquisitions” person, nor am I a film reviewer. My work keeps me out of the screening room because we work with filmmakers looking to get their films into the hands of those who will show their films. In other words, we advise and strategize for getting new films into the film circuit’s festivals, distributors' and international sales agents’ hands.

So I missed Ida at its Tiff debut. In Cartagena, where I was invited to cover the festival for SydneysBuzz and where I was gathering information for the book I have just completed on Iberoamerican Film Financing, it showed again in the jewel-box of a theater in this jewel-box of a city. But when I saw the first shots – and fell in love with it – I also saw it was subtitled in Spanish and rather than strain over translating, I left the theater. Later on, Pawel Pawlikowski and I sat next to each other at a fabulous dinner in one of Cartagena’s many outdoor squares, and we discussed the title of my book rather than his films which was a big loss on one hand but a big gain for me on the other because we got to speak as “civilians” rather than keeping the conversation on a “professional” level.

Read More: Review 'Ida' by Carlos Aguilar

Now Music Box is opening Ida in L.A. on May 2, 2014 at the Laemmle in L.A. and in N.Y. and I made sure to take advantage of my press status, not only to see the film but to interview Pawel on himself and the film.

There were two ways to look at this film: as a conceit, as in, “what a great story – a girl about to take her vows in the convent which raised her discovers she is Jewish and returns to the society which destroyed her family” -- or as a journey of a fresh soul into the heart of humanity and finds that she is blessed by being able to decide upon her own destiny within it.

Parenthetically, this seems to me to be a companion piece to the Berlinale film "Stations of the Cross", another journey of a fresh soul into the spiritual life of religion as she struggles in the society which formed her.

And so I began my interview with Pawel:

I could look at this film in two ways, I’ve heard the audiences talk about whether the film is Anti-Polish or Anti-Semitic, but that is not my concern, I want to know if it is just a great story or does it go deeper than that?

Pawel immediately responded, I Think he said, “I am not a professional filmmaker, and I do not make a ‘certain type of film’. I make films depending on where I am in life. A film about exile, a film about first love. Films mark where I am in my life.

In the '60s, when I was a kid and first saw the world this was how I depicted it in this film…seeing the world for the first time…life is a journey and filmmaking marks where you (the audience) are in life and it marks where I am in life. Each film is different as a result.

After making "Woman on the 5th," about the hero’s (in my own head) being lost in Paris, a weird sort of production – directed by a Polish director with a British and an American actor and actress, I craved solid ground, a familiar place or a “return” to important things of the past, and I returned to a certain period in Poland which I found very much alive, for myself then and again as I made this movie and in Polish history itself.

Ida takes place 17 years after the war and shortly after after Stalin’s crimes were being made public by Krushchev. The Totalitarian State of Poland bent a bit; censorship was lifted a bit and a new culture was developing. Music was jazz and rock and roll. Poland was very alive then: the spirit of going your own way, not caring what anyone thinks, creating a style in cinema, in art, music...

I myself was a young boy in the '60s and I left Poland in '71 when I was 13 to stay with my mother in England where she had married a Brit. My father lived in the West; they were divorced and I went for a holiday and stayed.

I went to school in the U.K. but at 13, I was thrown out and I went to Germany where my father lived and matriculated there. I couldn’t go back to Poland as I had left illegally and was only allowed back in to visit in the late '70s. I returned in 1980 during Solidarity and from 1989 to the fall of the Wall, I went back often.

Ida is a film about identity, family, faith, guilt, socialism and music. I wanted to make a film about history that wouldnʼt feel like a historical film— a film that is moral, but has no lessons to offer. I wanted to tell a story in which ʻeveryone has their reasonsʼ; a story closer to poetry than plot. Most of all, I wanted to steer clear of the usual rhetoric of the Polish cinema. The Poland in "Ida" is shown by an ʻoutsiderʼ with no ax to grind, filtered through personal memory and emotion, the sounds and images of childhood…

I read you are going to make another film about Poland…

It is not about Poland but it is set in Poland. I am working on three projects, which is how I work. I keep writing and find one of them has the legs to carry me…which one is not yet known.

You mentioned in an interview with Sight and Sound your top 10 films…

Yes, which ones did you like? They ask me this every year and every year the list changes for me. There are other good ones, like Once Upon a Time in Anatolia…they are not all the old classics and they are not necessarily my favorites or what I think are “the best”. Again they depend on where I am in my own life.

The ones I like on your list were Ashes and Diamonds which I saw in New York in my freshman year in college, "La Dolce Vita" …"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Some Like It Hot."

I actually think "8 ½" is more remarkable than "La Dolce Vita." I also like "Loves of a Blonde" very much….

I found "Ashes and Diamonds" so extraordinary, I then had to see the actor in "Man of Marble" which took me to the next "Man of Steel" and Man of…whatever... until I thought I knew Wadja. What did you make of this film?

I saw it later as I was too young when it came out in the '60s. I saw it in the '70s when it was already a classic. Its impact on me was that it was well-done and about something. It is a comment about a man who decides whether to fight or to live. It could be remade in any country coming out of civil war.

To return to Ida, I noticed stylistic choices you made that I would like you to comment on.

The landscapes and interiors were very large and sparse. Interiors always had someone in the back ground moving, arranging or walking by in silence.

Yes there is always some life and the movements of people in the background are like music in the film, though it is not really music…

Yes, the music in the film is great. The magnificence of the classical music someone is playing, like the aunt…

Yes I only want to use real music at times that real music is part of the story. I didn’t want film music. I wanted it to come out of silence. It is part of the scene like the background movement of people. Each piece means something. The pop songs were key from the start. They were fatally imprinted on my childhood memory. They really color the landscape. Coltrane and stuff came from my adult self.

Incidentally, the late '50s and early '60s were great for jazz in Poland. There was a real explosion: Komeda, Namyslowski, Stanko, Wroblewski... Apart from telling Idaʼs story, I wanted to conjure up a certain image of Poland, an image that I hold dear. My country may have been grey, oppressive and enslaved in the early '60s, but in some ways it was 'cooler' and more original than the Poland of today, and somehow more universally resonant.

Iʼm sure that lots of Poles with a chip on their shoulder, and there are many, will fail to notice the beauty, the love that went into our film—and will accuse me of damaging Poland's image by focusing on the melancholy, the provincial, the grotesque… And then there's the matter of a Polish farmer killing a Jewish family… thereʼs bound to be trouble. On the other hand, thereʼs also a Stalinist state prosecutor of Jewish origins, which might land me in hot water in other quarters. Still, I hope the film is sufficiently specific and un-rhetorical enough to be understood on its own terms.

The music Ida’s aunt was playing before she…what are your thoughts about her aunt?

Neither Ida nor her aunt is typical. Wanda’s imprimatur is that she has no self-pity, no regrets, no sentimentality.

She had fought in the resistance rather than raise a family. She had been a super idealistic Marxist, became a part of the New Establishment and got drawn into the games and hypocrisy, sending people to death for “impeding progress”.

She reminds me of my father in some ways. Her acerbic sense of humor. I gave her some of my father’s lines.

Where Did The Character Of Wanda Come From?

When I was doing my post-graduate degree at Oxford in the early '80s I befriended Professor Brus, a genial economist and reformist Marxist who left Poland in ʻ68. I was particularly fond of his wife Helena, who smoked, drank, joked and told great stories. She didn't suffer fools gladly, but she struck me as a warm and generous woman. I lost touch with the Bruses when I left Oxford, but some 10 years later I heard on BBC News that the Polish government was requesting the extradition of one Helena Brus-Wolinska, resident in Oxford, on the grounds of crimes against humanity. It turned out that the charming old lady had been a Stalinist prosecutor in her late twenties. Among other things, she engineered the death in a show trial of a completely innocent man and a real hero of the Resistance, General ‘Nil’ Fieldorf. It was a bit of a shock. I couldn't square the warm, ironic woman I knew with the ruthless fanatic and Stalinist hangman. This paradox has haunted me for years. I even tried to write a film about her, but couldnʼt get my head around or into someone so contradictory. Putting her into Idaʼs story helped bring that character to life. Conversely, putting the ex-believer with blood on her hands next to Ida helped me define the character and the journey of the young nun.

By 1956, illusions about society were gone. Stalin’s crimes were revealed in 1961, there was a change of government, a new generation was coming of age. Wanda was a judge they called “Red Wanda” and had sent enemies of the state to their deaths. The older generation was left high and dry. Communism had become a shabby reality. Her despair was apparent– she had been heroic and now the system was a joke.

And then some creature from the past pops up and makes her reveal all she had swept under the carpet. She drank too much, there was no love in her life, only casual sex. But still she was straight-ahead, directed and unstoppable.

And then after the revelations of what had become of their parents and her child, her sister returns to the convent. There is nowhere for her to go. She hits a wall. She is heroic and there is no place for her in society anymore.

And Ida? Why did you choose such a person?

Ida has multiple origins, the most interesting ones probably not quite conscious. Let's say that I come from a family full of mysteries and contradictions and have lived in one sort of exile or another for most of my life. Questions of identity, family, blood, faith, belonging, and history have always been present.

I'd been playing for years with the story of a Catholic nun who discovers sheʼs Jewish. I originally set it in ʻ68, the year of student protests and the Communist Party sponsored anti-Semitic purges in Poland. The story involved a nun a bit older than Ida, as well as an embattled bishop and a state security officer, and the whole thing was more steeped in the politics of the day. The script was turning out a little too schematic, thriller-ish and plotty for my liking, so I put Ida aside for a while and went to Paris to make The Woman In The Fifth . I was in a different place at the time.

When I came back to Ida, I had a much clearer idea of what I wanted the film to be. My cowriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz and I stripped the whole thing down, made it less plotty, the characters richer and less functional. Ida became younger, more inexperienced, more of a blank slate, a young girl on the brink of life. Also we moved the story to ʻ62, a more nondescript period in Poland, but also a time of which I have most vivid memories, my own impressions as a child - unaware of what was going on in the adult world, but all the more sensitive to images and sounds. Some shots in the film couldʼve come from my family album.

In the course of the film, Ida undergoes a change. She becomes energized. When she returns to the convent you can see it in her body movements. It is the only time we used a hand-held camera to depict the new energy she has acquired. She is going into the spiritual in a different way. The old way elicited a giggle from her; she had seen the sensuality of the novice nun bathing…whether she is returning to the convent to stay is left to the viewer to decide.

The viewer is brought into a space of associations they make on their own, the film is more like poetry where the feeling of the viewer is the private one of the viewer, not one the film imposes.

Yes, each woman enters a new reality and comes out changed, and I was left thinking there was nothing better of the two life choices, the “normal” life of love and family and the “spiritual” life of simple living and silent devotion. There needs to be some balance between the two, but what is that? I still don’t know.

On a last note: I noticed in the end credits you thanked Alfonso Cuarón. Why was that?

Yes he liked the film a lot. There were many people I thanked, like Agnieszka Holland. These are friends I can show my work to. They protect me against critics and festivals. This group of friends can also be nasty, but they are honest friends.

Thank you so much Pawel for your insights. I look forward to meeting you again “on the circuit”.

To my readers, here are the nuts and bolts of the film:

Music Box Films is the proud U.S. distributor of "Ida," the award-winning film written and directed by Pawel Pawlikowski. Ida world premiered at Telluride 2013 and Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the Fipresci Award for Best Film; then played the London Film Festival where it won Best Film, and was the Grand Prix winner at the Warsaw Film Festival. It played as an Official Selection in the 2014 Sundance and New York Jewish Film Festivals.

Poland 1962. Anna (newcomer Agata Trzebuchowska) is a beautiful eighteen-year-old woman, preparing to become a nun at the convent where she has lived since orphaned as a child. She learns she has a living relative she must visit before taking her vows, her mother’s sister Wanda. Her aunt, she learns, is not only a former hard-line Communist state prosecutor notorious for sentencing priests and others to death, but also a Jew. Anna learns from her aunt that she too is Jewish - and that her real name is Ida. This revelation sets Anna, now Ida, on a journey to uncover her roots and confront the truth about her family. Together, the two women embark on a voyage of discovery of each other and their past. Ida has to choose between her birth identity and the religion that saved her from the massacres of the Nazi occupation of Poland. And Wanda must confront decisions she made during the War when she chose loyalty to the cause before family.

Following his breakthrough films "Last Resort" and BAFTA-award winning "My Summer of Love," "Ida" marks Polish-born, British writer-director Pawel Pawlikowski's first film set in his homeland. Ida stars Agata Trzebuchowska and Agata Kulesza. It will open in Los Angeles on May 2 at the Laemmle's Royal. (Music Box Films, 80 minutes, unrated).

Its international producers, Eric Abraham (Portobello Pictures), Ewa Puszczynska (Opus Film), Piotr Dzieciol (Opus Film) and coproducer, Christian Falkenberg Husum of Denmark sold about 30 territories in Toronto and to date it has sold to 43 territories where the film has opened.

Argentina - Cdi Films, Australia - Curious Film, Austria - Polyfilm is still playing it and to date it has grossed Us$10,733. Benelux – Cineart where it is also still playing and has grossed Us$185,026 in Belgium and Us$131,247 in The Netherlands, Canada – Eyesteelfilm and Films We Like, Czech Republic – Aerofilms, Denmark - Camera Film, Denmark - Portobello Film Sales, France - Memento Films Distribution where in three weeks it grossed $3,192,706, Germany - Arsenal and Maxmedien where it grossed $24,010, Greece - Strada Films, Hungary - Mozinet Ltd., Israel - Lev Films (Shani Films), Italy - Parthenos where it grossed $681,460., Norway – Arthaus grossed $59,920, Poland – Soloban where it grossed $333,714, Portugal - Midas Filmes, Spain - Caramel Films is still playing it and to date it has grossed $408,085, Sweden - Folkets Bio, Switzerland - Frenetic, Taiwan - Andrews Film Co. Ltd, U.K. - Artificial Eye and Curzon, U.S. – Music Box and Film Forum.

Production

(Poland) An Opus Film, Phoenix Film production in association with Portobello Pictures in coproduction with Canal Plus Poland, Phoenix Film Poland. (International sales: Fandango Portobello, Copenhagen.) Produced by Eric Abraham, Piotr Dzieciol, Ewa Puszczynska. Coproducer, Christian Falkenberg Husum.

Crew

Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski. Screenplay, Pawlikowski, Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Camera (B&W), Lukasz Zal, Ryszard Lenczewski; editor, Jaroslaw Kaminski; production designers, Katarzyna Sobanska, Marcel Slawinski; costume designer, Aleksandra Staszko; Kristian Selin Eidnes Andersen; supervising sound editor, Claus Lynge; re-recording mixers, Lynge, Andreas Kongsgaard; visual effects, Stage 2; line producer, Magdalena Malisz; associate producer, Sofie Wanting Hassing.

With

Agata Kulesza, Agata Trzebuchowska, Dawid Ogrodnik, Joanna Kulig.

By Anjelica Oswald

Managing Editor

Set in 1960s Poland, Pawel Pawlikowski’s black-and-white drama Ida focuses on faith and identity after family secrets are revealed. Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska) is a young orphan brought up in a convent preparing to take her vows to become a nun. When told she must visit her aunt, her only living relative, Anna discovers she’s Jewish, her name is actually Ida and her parents were killed in WWII. Anna/Ida and her aunt embark on a journey to learn more about the family’s history and discover the truth about what happened.

The film landed on the Oscar shortlist for best foreign-language film and was nominated for a Golden Globe in the same category.

A number of foreign films focused on WWII have done well at the Oscars throughout the years. Ones based on real events include The Counterfeiters (2007), about the Nazis’ attempt to...

40. Night Moves

Since 2006, Kelly Reichardt has found a way to reach inside of the hearts of her audiences, plucking out strings one by one with desolate re-imaginations of the American Pacific Northwest, seen through the eyes of people not so different than ourselves. With Meek’s Cutoff, she departed from her typical genre and moved in to the Old West, but you could still see her stark realism, perfectly imagined on-screen. Now, Reichardt has shifted gears again, this time to present day (still in the Pacific Northwest), following three environmental activists as they plan to blow up a dam. But this time Reichardt has eschewed all sense of dry, dirty characterization for a much more flowing story where the characters emerge from their settings more fully. It’s still methodical, but somewhere in between the planning and heist itself, Reichardt’s star Jesse Eisenberg finds notes we haven’t seen...

After a summer season of blockbusters that gave the cinematic landscape of jewels and gems worthy of inspection a shake, “awards season,” from which some worthy contenders showed themselves, came roaring. Likewise, a backlog of more movies in the thick of this holiday season growing, certain timely realities proved elusive, in terms of getting to see everything 2014 — a year with more discoveries on my part than planned anticipation — had to offer. For that reason, potential favorites may turn up by the time some people, including myself, get to see those.

Yet, among the larger blockbusters (Interstellar, Godzilla, Guardians of the Galaxy) and widely lauded releases (Gone Girl, Boyhood, Whiplash, Birdman), surveying every crevice of that landscape, there were a lot of movies that were released, watched, podcasted about and reviewed here on Sound on Sight.

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In fact,...

Below is Part 2 of my annual look at the films that have a shot at making the Foreign Language Oscar shortlist. There are 83 submissions this year with some truly remarkable films in the bunch — and no 100% frontrunner. Here’s a refresher on how the nine films are chosen for the shortlist which is expected to be revealed tomorrow: The phase one committee determines six of the candidates, and the other three entries are selected by the Foreign Language Film Award Executive Committee. For the profiles below and yet to come, I spoke with the directors of the films about their inspirations and expectations. In many cases, I also checked in with the U.S. distributor about why they acquired the movies. Below is a look at the second group of four titles that have generated serious buzz over the past several weeks of screenings, Q&As and consulate lunches. For...

Good morning, it's mid-December, and we even more awards for you. Over the weekend, the European Film Awards were handed out, and while the results usually have pretty much zero bearing on what will happen at Oscar in a couple of months time, the big winners just happens to be a movie that's in the race for Best Foreign Film as well. Poland's Oscar entry, Pawel Pawlikowski’s "Ida," took home the major prizes — Best European Film, Best European Director, Best European Screenwriter, Best European Cinematographer, and the People's Choice Award — in a near sweep of the European Film Awards, with Agata Trzebuchowska missing out on Best European Actress to Marion Cotillard for "Two Days, One Night." Other wins of note include Timothy Spall for Best European Actor for his work in "Mr. Turner," and Steve McQueen honored with a World Cinema award. Agnes Varda used the occasion of her...

"Birdman" is coming out really strong with the critics awards nominations lately, heading up another list this weekend with the Chicago Film Critics Association. The film picked up nine tips of the hat, with fellow critical darlings "Boyhood" and "The Grand Budapest Hotel" not far behind. And a lovely note: naturally, "Life Itself," about the life of Chicago staple Roger Ebert, was nominated for Best Documentary as it continues to be one of the top contenders of that field. I picture him giving a hearty thumbs up to that. Check out the full list of nominees below. Winners will be announced on Dec. 15. And remember to track it all at The Circuit. Best Picture "Birdman" "Boyhood" "The Grand Budapest Hotel" "Under the Skin" "Whiplash" Best Director Wes Anderson, "The Grand Budapest Hotel" David Fincher, "Gone Girl" Alejandro González Iñárritu, "Birdman" Richard Linklater, "Boyhood" Christopher Nolan, "Interstellar" Best Actor Benedict Cumberbatch,...

Chicago – The best movies of 2014 were on display as the Chicago Film Critics Association (Cfca) announced their nominees in several categories of film excellence. Leading the pack was director Alejandro G. Inarritu’s “Birdman,” Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and newcomer Damien Chazelle’s “Whiplash.” The best in each category will be announced on Monday, December 15th.

‘Birdman’

Photo credit: Fox Searchlight Pictures

The Chicago Film Critics Association is an organization that oversees many events in the Chicagoland area, including the Chicago Film Critics Awards, the Chicago Critics Film Festival and various film discussions and events around the city and surrounding suburbs. The nominees for the Cfca best of 2014 films are…

Best Picture

“Birdman”

“Boyhood”

“The Grand Budapest Hotel”

“Under the Skin”

“Whiplash”

Best Director

Wes Anderson - “The Grand Budapest Hotel”

David Fincher - “Gone Girl”

Alejandro G. Inarritu - “Birdman”

Richard Linklater - “Boyhood”

Christopher Nolan...

From acclaimed director Paweł Pawlikowski (Last Resort, My Summer of Love) comes Ida (2013), a poignant and powerfully told drama about 18-year-old Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska). A sheltered orphan, Anna is preparing to become a nun when she discovers that her real name is Ida and her Jewish parents were killed during the Nazi occupation. This revelation triggers a journey into the secrets of a repressed past evoking haunting legacies and the realities of post-war communism. To celebrate the DVD and Blu-ray release of Ida this Monday (24 November), we have Three DVD copies to give away. This is an exclusive competition for our Facebook and Twitter fans, so if you haven't already, 'Like' us at facebook.com/CineVueUK or follow us @CineVue before answering the question below.

★★★★☆Making his return to filmmaking after his adaptation of Douglas Kennedy's novel The Woman in the Fifth (2011), Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski's latest, Ida (2013), is a spare and outstandingly minimalist drama very much in keeping with his cinematic fixation with outsiders who find themselves out of their depths. Set in 1960s Poland and starring Agata Trzebuchowska in her acting debut, the film sees her playing Anna, a sheltered 18-year-old novitiate nun who’s been raised in a convent all her life. On the verge of taking her vows, Anna makes a variety of life-changing discoveries: her real name is in fact Ida and her Jewish parents were killed during the Nazi occupation.

Ida director Pawel Pawlikowski on Jean-Luc Godard: "Some of the freedom I took with the continuity, which is trying to shoot the film in tableaux…" Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard hosted a reception and screening at the Crosby Street Hotel in New York of Pawel Pawlikowski's Ida, which stars Agata Trzebuchowska, Agata Kulesza and Dawid Ogrodnik. As Jake Gyllenhaal scrambled off, I spoke with Pawel about the freedom Jean-Luc Godard's Vivre Sa Vie, starring Anna Karina, gave him; Krzysztof Kieslowski's Decalogue; Odysseus; Milos Forman's Loves Of A Blonde and Fireman's Ball; fairytales with Jean-Pierre Dardenne; Luc Dardenne and Yoko Ono; Paul Celan's Fugue Of Death, until we ended with the tale of Winnie the Pooh.

Ida is the funereal journey of two women, told in stark black and white tableaux, set in 1960s Poland. Anna, brought up in a convent...

Director Pawel Pawlikowski sought a cinema sui generis in making "Ida," a devastating masterpiece set in Poland 1962, when the British-trained director was a little boy. This dreamlike road movie follows a convent-raised orphan girl named Anna who is told that her birth name is Ida Lebenstein, and that her parents were Jewish and murdered in the war. The courier of this shocking news is Ida's caustic, free-spirited aunt Wanda who resents her niece's innocence but takes the girl under her wing anyway to uncover the dark reality of her family's past in the Polish pastoral. "Ida" swept the festival circuit throughout 2013 and 2014, ultimately nabbing about $4 million at the Us box office, outmatching its take in France where the film was deemed a hit. "Ida" has now been nominated for five European Film Awards: Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenwriter, as well as two Best Actress nominations for Agata Kulesza and Agata Trzebuchowska.

A who's who of this year's Oscar-contending foreign film crop will duke it out for best film honors along with Lars von Trier's latest at this year's European Film Awards. "Force Majeure" from Sweden, "Ida" from Poland, "Leviathan" from Russia and "Winter Sleep" from Turker were nominated in the top category with Lars von Trier's two-part "Nymphomaniac," with "Ida" leading the way overall with five nominations. Steven Knight's "Locke" showed up in the director and screenwriter fields, while that film's star, Tom Hardy, was nominated in the best actor category along with awards hopefuls like Brendan Gleeson ("Calvary") and Timothy Spall (shockingly, "Mr. Turner's" only nomination). Marion Cotillard ("Two Days, One Night"), Charlotte Gainsbourg ("Nymphomaniac") and Agata Kulesza ("Ida") were among the best actress nominees. Also announced were the craft prizes, included hardware for "Ida" (cinematographer), "Under the Skin" (composer) and "The Dark Valley" (costume and...

Four entries in the Oscar foreign-language category will be competing against Lars von Trier‘s steamy “Nymphomaniac” for the best European film of 2014 at the upcoming European Film Awards, the European Film Academy announced on Saturday in Seville. Pawel Pawlikowski's austere black-and-white film “Ida,” the Polish Oscar entry, led all films with five nominations: film, directing and screenplay, along with acting nominations for Agata Kulesza and Agata Trzebuchowska. Andrey Zvyagintsev's dark epic “Leviathan,” which is Russia's Oscar submission, received four nominations. Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Palme d'Or winner “Winter Sleep” received three, as did von Trier's lengthy, sexually-explicit...

Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida leads the field for the 27th European Film Awards with five major nominations including Best European Film, Director, two Best Actress nods for co-leads Agata Trzebuchowska and Agata Kulesza, and Best Screenplay.

Close behind are Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev‘s Leviathan and Turkey’s Palme d’Or winner Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Winter Sleep, a pair of Cannes winners. Both films have been chosen to represent their country in the Academy Awards foreign language category.

The European Film Awards has increasingly become a bellwether for awards season, with previous Efa Best European Film winners Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty and Michael Haneke’s Amour going on to win the Best Foreign Language film at the Oscars.

Marion Cotillard, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Tom Hardy, Stellan Skarsgard and Timothy Spall are among the acting nominees.

The European Film Awards ceremony will be handed out in Riga, Latvia on...

Agata Trzebuchowska and Agata Kulesza in Ida Photo: Music Box Films The fourth edition of the Play Poland touring festival kicks off on Thursday, October 9.

The festival - which will visit Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast, Birmingham, Sunderland, Belfast and Aberfeldy - will celebrate the best of recent Polish cinema as well as hosting art exhibitions and short film showcases. Internationally, the festival also has a presence in Ottawa, New York and Oslo.

Among this year's feature films are Pawel Pawlikowski's multi-award winning Ida, about an orphaned novice nun who discovers a living relative and travels into her family's past. Other highlights include Life Feels Good (Chce sie zyc), Maciej Pieprzyca's retelling of the remarkable true story of a boy's struggle to communicate with others after being born with cerebral palsy. Featuring a standout performance from Dawid Ogrodnik as the central character Mateusz, Pieprzyca brings a clear-eyed intelligence to a...

★★★★☆British-based director Paweł Pawlikowski (My Summer of Love) has spent his entire career thus far outside, geographically at least, his native Poland. Now, with his fifth feature film, he journeys back to rediscover his homeland along with his two lead characters in the stunningly beautiful Ida (2013). It's a trip back in time to the sixties, shot in exquisite monochrome and telling a fairly intimate tale which can't help but feel incredibly personal to its director, despite its eminently bleak tone. Bolstered by exceptional performances from Agata Kulesza and newcomer Agata Trzebuchowska, Pawlikowski's latest could be a dark horse for next year's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, submitted as it is as Poland's entry.

The haunting legacy of the Nazi occupation of Poland is encapsulated in this quietly affecting drama set in 1962. Before taking her vows, novice nun Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska) is sent to see her only living relative, Aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza), a Communist Party stalwart who reveals that Anna was born a Jew called Ida. More revelations follow as the convent girl uncovers the grim truth about her family's fate and how it could determine her own future.

Winner of awards at the London and Toronto film festivals last year, and earning great acclaim pretty much anywhere it showed up, Pawel Pawlikowski's "Ida" is a movie you don't want to miss. And today, we're here to make sure at least a few lucky readers get a chance to catch up with it. Starring newcomer Agata Trzebuchowska, the 1960s set movie follows 18-year old Anna, raised as an orphan in a convent, who is sent to visit her last living relative, Aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza). From her she learns that her real name is Ida and her Jewish parents were murdered during the Nazi occupation. And so begins a complicated journey of memory and identity for Ida, with Pawlikwski's movie one we called "striking and evocative." So how can you get your hands on a copy of the film? Follow us on Twitter and tweet the following: “I...

"You have no idea of the effect you have, do you?" It's time for yet another Monthly Must See feature film that we highly recommend you watch. This one may be one a few have seen already, considering it's rotating through the Top Movies list on iTunes. The film is titled Ida starring the lovely Agata Trzebuchowska, from Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski. This intriguing Polish drama first premiered at the Telluride Film Festival last year, before playing at festivals all over the world and eventually arriving in Us theaters for a limited release back in May. Shot and presented in black & white in the 1.37:1 'Academy ratio', this stunning film tells the story of a young nun named Ida in 1960s Poland discovering herself and the world. The film will not only help Polish actress Agata Trzebuchowska (who plays Ida) earn some major offers for additional breakout roles after this,...

At a loss for what to watch this week? From new DVDs and Blu-rays, to what's streaming on Netflix, we've got you covered.

New on DVD and Blu-ray

"Godzilla"

Indie director Gareth Edwards got a crack at one of the biggest monsters there is in this summer's blockbuster. Bryan Cranston plays a scientist obsessed with government secrets since the mysterious death of his wife Sandra (Juliette Binoche) after a suspicious nuclear reactor meltdown. Aaron Taylor-Johnson co-stars as his son Ford, a Navy guy who discovers that dear old dad's paranoia might actually be worth checking out. Ken Watanabe and Sally Hawkins co-star as scientists studying the real cause of that nuclear meltdown.

"The Fault in Our Stars"

It Girl Shailene Woodley stars in this adaptation of John Green's Ya weepie about a teen named Hazel dying of cancer. Augustus (Ansel Elgort) is another teen coping with the Big C,...

Ida Music Box Films Reviewed for Shockya by Harvey Karten. Data-based on Rotten Tomatoes Grade: B Director: Pawel Pawlikowski Screenplay: Pawel Pawlikowski, Rebecca Lenkiewicz Cast: Agata Kulesza, Agata Trzebuchowska, Dawid Ogrodnik, Joanna Kulig Screened at: Critics’ Link, NYC, 8/2/14 Opens: September 9, 2014 on DVD and Blu-ray and VOD. Theatrical opening May 2, 2014. Director Pawel Pawlikowski, is known to cineastes largely for his passionate “My Summer of Love,” which charts a meeting between women with opposite predilections; one a tomboy looking for an alternative to the emptiness of life, the other cynical, spoiled and well-educated. You can see that “Ida” is right up the director’s alley as now he [ Read More ]

The post Ida Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Are you getting restless about all these halfway posts? We're almost done. The Power of List compels me. There's one more halfway post to go that's basically 'The Oscar Charts are Updated!' as the coding problem I mentioned is fixed and the updates are happening behind the scenes as you read this. We must get all this halfway business behind us by Saturday morning so that we can ape out all weekend with Andy Serkis & Co and start this second half of the year off right.

Herewith...

The Greatest Performances Of 2014's First Half

Best Leading Actress: Keira Knightley does her most relaxed and fluid work ever in Begin Again as a musician at a crossroads, never letting any one aspect of the character's situation pigeonhole her emotional responses; Agata Kulesza is an abrasive and evasive presence in her first scenes in Ida as a cynical woman who is...

The new drama Ida concerns a young woman seemingly eager and prepared to forge ahead and continue on her life’s journey, a trip she has been certain of for most of her existence. But, as is often the case, one must first re-trace your steps in a way to see the beginning of the road, n order to continue on with no qualms or regrets. As the film opens we meet a girl on the verge of adulthood living in a convent in Poland at the beginning of the 1960′s. Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska) will soon be taking her vows and fully join the sisterhood, but first the Mother Superior sends her on a task. Anna was raised at the church-run orphanage since she was an infant. Anna’s only living relative, an aunt, has not responded to invitations to visit her niece. Before the ceremony, Anna will board a...

The alarming precision of nuns singing chromatically descending chants.

The hollow, circular depression of earth on the grounds of the convent where a life-size statue of Jesus stands, and where Ida paces restlessly.

The hermetic insularity of these images and sounds are what give “Ida” its incisive narrative force. Despite its circular and deceptively simple storytelling, the film conveys an awesome transformation within its main character Ida, (or Anna, her Christian name), a young novitiate about to take her vows who discovers she is Jewish.

Ida’s story is one of many, a single thread in a web woven from the aftermath of the Holocaust. Despite its historical context, Richard Brody, in his controversial review in The New Yorker, asserts that “Ida” is fraudulent, vague, and distasteful. Mr. Brody argues that because “Ida” is non-specific to any particular event related to Jews and the Holocaust, it sacrifices truth in favor...

BAFTA Award-winning Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski made an astonishing pair of films in the first half of the last decade, with Last Resort and My Summer of Love. After a fairly quiet period he has returned with Ida, a poignant tale of a young nun in 1960s communist Poland trying to make sense of an unfamiliar world, which had taken the top prize at the London Film Festival. Beautifully shot in a stark monochrome, Ida is a sometimes difficult, understated gem of a movie that gives its audience much to think about during its brief, 80 minute running time.

Agata Trzebuchowska plays Anna, a novice nun with little experience of the world outside the very basic convent she has grown up in since being left there as a baby. As it turns out, Anna has a surviving relative, her aunt Wanda Gruz (Agata Kulesza), who she is encouraged to get in contact with.

I was recently reminded of Freud’s assertion that humanity as whole suffered from a singular, intrinsic contradiction. He claimed that each and every one of us are constantly caught between hurling ourselves into the unknown and – to put it simply – staying home in bed. We are at constant war within ourselves, our introvert fighting our extrovert, until one of them wins out or they both give up, leaving their host in unsatisfied limbo. It’s a will they/won’t they analogy that can be applied to almost every facet of humanity, and it coats every inch of Ida, a tale of two people too broken to hold on, but too afraid to let go.

The Ida in question is an orphan, raised in a Polish nunnery at the height of Communism’s grip on Eastern Europe. Upon visiting an aunt, her only remaining relative, Ida discovers that she...

Although state-side cinephiles may not be familiar with the work of filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski or the nuances of Polish history, here at Filmmaker Magazine we suspect you’re about to find both deeply compelling. In Ida, a beautifully wrought gem of a film, the writer/director brings audiences the story of Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), a young orphan raised by Polish Catholic nuns who meets her next of kin — the hard-drinking and cynical Wanda (Agata Kulesz) — on the eve of joining the convent, and learns that her family is Jewish. Together, the women set off on a road trip seeking the truth about their family’s past. In this conversation, Pawlikowski discusses his […]...

Although state-side cinephiles may not be familiar with the work of filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski or the nuances of Polish history, here at Filmmaker Magazine we suspect you’re about to find both deeply compelling. In Ida, a beautifully wrought gem of a film, the writer/director brings audiences the story of Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), a young orphan raised by Polish Catholic nuns who meets her next of kin — the hard-drinking and cynical Wanda (Agata Kulesz) — on the eve of joining the convent, and learns that her family is Jewish. Together, the women set off on a road trip seeking the truth about their family’s past. In this conversation, Pawlikowski discusses his […]...

An immaculate life of solitude and devotion to God is a commitment marked by sacrifice for which not many are prepared. Giving up mundane and carnal pleasures for a state of plentiful spirituality is not simple undertaking. There must be no doubt, no curiosity to experience the world outside the values of chastity and humbleness, and any vestiges of selfish behavior must be eradicated to achieve purity in the eyes of the church. Such is the decision Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), an 18-year-old novice must make in Pawel Pawlikowski’s utterly unforgettable drama Ida. Set the post-Holocaust Poland of the 1960s where the scars of the war still caused chilling pain, the film focuses on the chance Anna is given to discover her origins before taking on a path of lifelong faith. Through her journey not only will she find answers to her personal mysteries, but the hidden turmoil of a time of cruel transition for the Polish nation will also be exposed.

Certain of what her future as a nun should be, Anna needs no more convincing or reassuring - she is ready. However, before she takes the next step she is persuaded by the Mother Superior to visit her only living relative, her aunt Wanda Gruz (Agata Kulesza), whose existence was unknown to her. Immediately after meeting, it is obvious that they couldn’t be more different. Wanda is a retired prosecutor who sentenced many criminals during her better days. Reduced to find happiness in one-night stands, cigarettes, and liquor, there is very little tenderness left in her to give.

On their first encounter she explains to Anna that she is Jewish, that her birth name is Ida Lebenstein, and that her parents died in the war. These shattering revelations instantly ignite a sense of conflicted identity in the young woman who was raised in Catholic convent unaware of her real story. Like her country, she is divided between what her past tells her she is, and what she wants to become in the future.

Embarking on a road trip through several small towns, the two women are in search of the pieces to rewrite a chapter of their lives erased by history and the perpetrators’ guilt. They visit the family’s old house to unveil the dark secrets hidden under the surface, a task that will take them to face their individual demons. Wanda can’t forgive herself for not being able to stop the atrocities from happening, while Anna has discovered what is beyond the convent’s walls. Temptation knocks at the Anna’s door in the form of a boy, and though she knows she must transition into the obedient servant she has been preparing to be her entire life, maybe she wants to live one day as Ida in the poisonous world of mortals.

Gorgeously crafted, the black-and-white cinematography and a sublimely written story allow for very little room to critique a film with not a single miscalculation. Agata Trzebuchowska as Anna/Ida is spectacularly contained and tranquil playing off the more violent emotions delivered by the also marvelous Agata Kulesza, as the apparently strong, yet vulnerable Wanda. Every line of dialogue ripples through the scenes highlighting the importance of the balance between words and silence. Tightly edited to last 80 minutes, Pawlikowski created a nuanced and provocative story that uses its historical context in an intelligent way that still lets the characters shine for their individual struggles. Achieved with masterful technique in every aspect of its exquisite conception, Ida is as flawless a film as one will see this year. Each frame is a stunning work of sheer perfection.

With Ida Pawlikowski has introduced a new art house classic that is so layered with historical relevance as it is profoundly inquisitive about what defines a person’s self-perception. Is the protagonist Anna or Ida? Is she Jewish or Christian? Is she a soon-to-be nun or is she a young woman finding herself? Is what she was at birth what she really is or is what she decides to be what matters? And if she is a combination of all of these, then how can she live with all the conflicting elements of her identity? With no rigid, definitive answer, she owes it to herself to experience both. Although often located at the bottom third of the frame, Anna and Ida will always be fighting to come to the surface, sometimes obscuring and at times enhancing the other half.

Read Sydney Levine's Interview with director Pawel Pawlikowski Here...

Broadly speaking a female coming-of-age saga, Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida has an eerie luster — it’s a movie out of time. Its boxy, black-and-white palette is stark: Objects stand out like branches against a cold winter sky. The wordless opening shots suggest Dreyer or early Bergman. In a rural Polish convent in the early 1960s, a young orphan (Agata Trzebuchowska) called Anna prepares to take her vows. But first, says the Mother Superior, she has to meet her only relative, an aunt named Wanda (Agata Kulesza). It’s from Wanda she learns that her given name was “Ida.” And also that she’s Jewish.Trzebuchowska resembles a young Mia Farrow — her wide-apart eyes seem fixed on some otherworldly realm. She’s frozen in beatitude. The news that she’s Jewish does not elicit much of an external reaction, so her aunt emotes for two. Wanda is a judge, but was...

When we colloquially use the term “photogenic,” we sometimes mistake it to refer to things that are conventionally attractive: a pretty vase, a breathtaking landscape, a supermodel. But photogenic is a quality that simply attracts the eye when captured – objects, events, and people that seem befitted to the strengths of photography, or things that, when framed a particular way, draw the eye in. Sure, Brad Pitt is photogenic, but so is Boris Karloff. Photogenic is not a term of evaluation, but a term of function: an ancient cavern can be photogenic, as can a bloody war zone. Thus, the fact that cinema can and has long depicted tragedy, horror and detritus in ways that are evocative and even beautiful has never been a paradox. Cinema uses the tools of what Jean Epstein referred to as “photogenie” to take viewers into a perspectival space, where they are asked to look at and examine people and events in ways...

Sister Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska) is an war orphan who is about to take a vow. The Mother Superior tells her that her only known relative, her aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza), finally contacted her, and Anna is to leave the convent and stay with Wanda before committing herself to God. Chain smoking and boozy, aunt Wanda is kind of a mess -- a guilt-ridden Jewess war survivor, she became a judge hell-bent on revenge. She tells Anna that her actual name is Ida Lebenstein, a daughter of a Jewish couple who perished in the war. Together they take a trip to find out what happened to Ida's parents. They confront a Polish farmer who might or might not have killed Ida's family during the Nazi occupation...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

New Release

The Protector 2

R, 1 Hr., 44 Mins.

Thai martial-arts maestro Tony Jaa’s newest film overloads on terrible F/X that rob the film of the actor’s usual brute-force balleticism. Also, RZA plays the bad guy — and someone needs to tell the Wu-Tang master that he can’t act (or fight). The Protector 2 does have a loony charm (actual line of dialogue: “You lost your elephant again?”), and Jija Yanin Wismitanan has a scene-stealing turn as a lady warrior seeking — wait for it — vengeance. (Also available on iTunes and VOD) B- —Darren Franich

New Release

Beneath the Harvest Sky

Not Rated,...

With awards from Tiff, London Film Festival, the American Society of Cinematographers and more, there's no doubt that "Ida" has been universally adored. But if you're looking for a more personal assessment, be sure to read our review, wherein Jessica Kiang calls it "a small, quiet, polished...thoughtful, artful film." And today, we have an exclusive look at the film, that highlights the controlled beauty Pawel Pawlikowski brings to his film. Led by Agata Trzebuchowska, the film tells the story of 18-year-old orphan Anna, raised in a convent, who is preparing to become a nun when she's told she must first visit her only living relative, Aunt Wanda. It leads to Anna discovering her Jewish past, learning her real name, heritage and the fate of her parents too. And in this clip, we see Anna not only out of place with herself, but also the world around her, with the...

From the opening moments of “Ida,” the Polish film from director Pawel Pawlikowski, it’s clear that we’re in for something unusual. Shot in a boxy aspect ratio, in rich, complex black and white, the film isn’t simply stylistically arresting, however; these first few moments find us in a quiet cloister of a Polish convent in the 1960s as a group of novice nuns silently, piously, go about restoring a statue of Christ, returning it to its plinth in the convent’s snowy grounds. This wordless beginning, told in beautifully composed shots, sets the mood for a small, quiet, polished film that unfolds slowly but with remarkable assurance and features a striking central performance from Agata Trzebuchowska. Or rather a striking central performance from Agata Trzebuchowska’s face, because it is her watchful, dark-eyed, unblemished visage, usually framed by a plain gray wimple that is perhaps the film’s most evocative recurring image,...

Not to knock Spidey (and the X-Men, and Captain America, and the Guardians of the Galaxy...) but it's easy to feel some -- or a lot -- of superhero fatigue at this time of year. And the Big Summer Movie season has barely gotten started! Below, Toh! calls your attention to ten great indie films hitting theaters this summer. They're just what the doctor ordered. 1. "Ida" (May 2). Pawel Pawlikowski's tale of a young nun in late 1950s Poland who discovers her Jewish heritage is hands-down the most gorgeous film of the year. Shot in black-and-white and incorporating an unusual framing device (Pawlikowski puts his subjects at the bottom corners of the frame, emphasizing the weight of the past hanging over them), the film features pitch-perfect performances from veteran Polish star Agata Kulesza and newcomer Agata Trzebuchowska. The trailer is here. 2. "The Double" (May 9). In dual roles, Jesse Eisenberg knocks...

Around 3 million Polish Jews — about 90 percent of the population — were killed by the Nazis. A few thousand gentiles sought to save the rest. The new Polish film Ida considers this time from the vantage point of 1962, rendered compellingly in black-and-white.

Director Pawel Pawlikowski's heroine is a young novitiate named Anna (played canvas-like by Agata Trzebuchowska), raised in a Lodz convent, who before taking her vows learns a secret: Her birth name is Ida Lebenstein, and her parents were murdered Jews.

She learns this through her long-unknown-to-her Jewish aunt Wanda (sharp and weary Agata Kulesza), a judge formerly feted for delivering harsh penalties to state enemies during the Stalinist era and now smoking, drinking, and sleeping around bi...