Green Border
Green Border (Polish: Zielona granica) is a 2023 black-and-white drama film written and directed by Agnieszka Holland, dramatizing the 2021 Belarus–Poland border crisis in which the Belarusian regime under Alexander Lukashenko facilitated the influx of migrants from the Middle East and Africa to destabilize the European Union.[1] The film, shot in a documentary-like 4:3 aspect ratio, interweaves perspectives of a Syrian refugee family, an Afghan teacher, and a Polish border guard confronting moral dilemmas amid pushbacks and state-of-emergency measures implemented by Poland to secure its frontier.[2] Premiering at the 2023 Venice Film Festival where it won the Special Jury Prize, the production drew international acclaim for its unflinching portrayal of human suffering but ignited fierce backlash in Poland from government officials who denounced it as anti-Polish propaganda that distorted the geopolitical context by downplaying Belarus's weaponization of migration as retaliation against EU sanctions.[3][4] Despite earning top honors at the Polish Film Awards including Best Film, the movie's release prompted state funding cuts to Holland's projects and personal security threats to the director, highlighting tensions between artistic critique and national security narratives in a country facing documented hybrid threats.[3][5]Historical Context
The 2021 Belarus–Poland Border Crisis
The 2021 Belarus–Poland border crisis emerged in mid-2021 as a deliberate state-sponsored operation by the regime of Alexander Lukashenko to instrumentalize migration as a form of hybrid warfare against the European Union. Following the disputed 2020 Belarusian presidential election, which triggered widespread protests and Western sanctions for electoral fraud and human rights abuses, Lukashenko's government escalated tensions by hijacking a Ryanair Flight 4978 on May 23, 2021, diverting it from Greek to Belarusian airspace under a false bomb threat to arrest opposition journalist Raman Pratasevich.[6] [7] This act prompted further EU sanctions, including aviation restrictions and asset freezes, to which Belarus retaliated by easing visa requirements and organizing charter flights from Middle Eastern countries like Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, funneling thousands of migrants to Minsk International Airport before transporting them to the Polish and Lithuanian borders.[8] [9] Lukashenko publicly threatened on July 7, 2021, to "flood" the EU with migrants and drugs, framing the tactic as leverage against sanctions rather than spontaneous migration flows.[10] By late summer 2021, the crisis intensified with organized mass attempts to illegally cross into Poland, peaking in October and November when groups of up to several thousand migrants, equipped with wire cutters and ladders provided by Belarusian forces, sought to breach border fences amid freezing conditions.[11] Polish Border Guard data recorded over 40,000 illegal crossing attempts in 2021 alone, with security forces repelling the majority through pushbacks justified under international law exceptions for exceptional mass influxes posing threats to national security.[12] Incidents involved violence, including migrants throwing stones at guards and attempts to overwhelm checkpoints, while Polish intelligence reported discoveries of weapons and concerns over potential ISIS affiliates or other radicals among the arrivals, heightening risks of terrorism and smuggling.[13] Belarusian authorities exacerbated the standoff by using water cannons, pepper spray, and forest clearings to force migrants toward the border, rejecting repatriation offers and trapping thousands in a no-man's-land buffer zone.[14] Poland responded decisively to safeguard sovereignty, declaring a state of emergency on September 2, 2021, along a 200-km border strip, restricting access to journalists and NGOs to prevent hybrid interference documentation.[15] This enabled immediate pushbacks without formal asylum processing, a measure extended until July 2022, alongside deploying 15,000 troops and constructing a 186-km, 5.5-meter-high border wall topped with barbed wire and surveillance systems, completed in June 2022 at a cost of approximately 1.6 billion złoty (around $400 million).[16] The wall significantly reduced crossings post-completion, dropping attempts by over 90% in subsequent months. Humanitarian toll included at least 13 confirmed migrant deaths by November 2021, primarily from hypothermia and exhaustion in sub-zero temperatures, with Belarusian tactics—such as denying returns and inciting forward pressure—contributing causally alongside the orchestrated entrapment.[10] [17] EU leaders, including the European Commission, condemned the crisis as Belarusian aggression while supporting Poland's defensive measures as proportionate to the threat.[18]Production
Development and Pre-Production
Agnieszka Holland decided to develop Green Border in September 2021, shortly after the onset of the Belarus–Poland border crisis, drawing inspiration from contemporaneous reports by activists, journalists, refugees, and even border guards to depict the human dimensions of the events.[19][20] The screenplay was co-written by Holland, Maciej Pisuk, and Gabriela Łazarkiewicz-Sieczko, who structured the narrative around multiple perspectives—including a Syrian family, a border guard, and activists—to explore moral dilemmas and the crisis's complexity, informed by extensive research into real accounts from the ground.[20] From the outset, Holland envisioned a black-and-white aesthetic to evoke a timeless, quasi-documentary quality, emphasizing the film's roots in factual events over sensationalism and linking the migrant plight to broader historical patterns of dehumanization, such as those seen in the 2015 Syrian refugee wave.[20] Development proceeded into 2022 as Poland initiated construction of a border barrier in response to the instrumentalization of migrants by Belarusian authorities, a context Holland later described as shaping the project's urgency to portray refugees' "impossible choices" amid psychological and physical hardships.[19][21] Funding was secured through an international co-production involving entities from Poland, France, the Czech Republic, and Belgium, supported by organizations including Eurimages and the Czech Film Fund; notably, the team opted not to apply for grants from the Polish Film Institute, anticipating institutional resistance to a subject critical of government border policies.[4][22] Holland articulated the film's intent as fostering empathy by humanizing migrants often reduced to propaganda pawns, while interrogating societal responses without prescribing solutions, though this perspective aligned closely with activist narratives over official security rationales for pushbacks.[20][21]Filming and Technical Aspects
Principal photography for Green Border took place in Poland, primarily in the forested regions of Podlaskie Voivodeship, selected to replicate the swampy and dense "green border" terrain between Poland and Belarus.[2] These locations provided the natural isolation and harsh environmental conditions central to the film's depiction of migrant struggles, with crews navigating muddy swamps and thick underbrush to capture authentic on-location footage.[23] The film was shot in stark black-and-white cinematography, employing handheld cameras in a cinéma vérité style to heighten immersion and documentary-like tension, emphasizing raw, unsteady perspectives that mirror the chaos and disorientation of border crossings.[23][24] This approach, combined with natural lighting and minimal setups, allowed for fluid movement through challenging woodland environments, prioritizing spontaneity over polished compositions to underscore the subjects' vulnerability.[25] To manage the logistical demands of multiple storylines and remote settings, director Agnieszka Holland employed a guerrilla filming technique, utilizing three directing units where she and co-directors focused on separate actor groups simultaneously for efficiency.[26] This method facilitated rapid coverage of dispersed scenes amid unpredictable weather and terrain, completing principal photography in spring 2023.[27]Pre-Release Controversies
In early 2023, the release of the trailer for Green Border ignited pre-release debates in Poland, with conservative commentators and media outlets, including state-aligned voices, contending that the footage portrayed Polish border guards in a dehumanizing light while centering migrant suffering, thereby neglecting evidence of Belarusian orchestration of migrant pushes as a deliberate hybrid warfare tactic against EU states.[28][29] These previews, drawn from production materials, were seen by detractors as empirically incomplete, omitting documented Belarusian agency—such as state-sponsored transport of migrants to the border—as verified by EU reports and Polish intelligence assessments of the 2021 crisis.[30] Culture Minister Piotr Gliński addressed funding rumors in April 2023, clarifying that the film received no support from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage or the Polish Film Institute after initial pre-production grants, emphasizing that public funds should not subsidize works perceived as ideologically biased against national security efforts.[31] By September 2023, ahead of the September 22 Polish premiere, Gliński viewed portions of the film and described it as a "tendentious, propagandistic interpretation" depicting "contempt, sadism, and disgust" incompatible with border realities faced by guards under legal obligations. This echoed broader right-wing critiques, including from Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, who likened the narrative to Third Reich propaganda tactics, prompting calls for accountability over prior state financing despite the film's completion under earlier administrations.[29] Director Agnieszka Holland countered these assessments as attempts at state censorship, arguing that the film drew from on-site journalistic accounts and activist testimonies to depict human costs without endorsing illegal crossings, and that preemptive judgments based on trailers stifled artistic inquiry into policy dilemmas.[30][32] On September 21, 2023, the Interior Ministry mandated cinemas to precede screenings with official footage of border guard operations and migrant instrumentalization by Belarus, framing the film as potentially misleading; several arthouse theaters resisted, citing it as governmental interference in cultural expression.[28][33] These tensions fueled pre-release boycott appeals from conservative groups, who urged audiences to reject what they termed an anti-Polish agitprop, heightening polarization before public viewings.[29]Plot Summary
Green Border (Polish: Zielona granica) is structured in chapters that interweave perspectives during the 2021 Belarus–Poland border crisis. The narrative begins with a group of Middle Eastern and African refugees, including a Syrian family fleeing conflict and an Afghan English teacher, attempting to cross the forested "green border" into Poland. Belarusian authorities facilitate their entry to the frontier as a hybrid warfare tactic against the European Union, while Polish border guards, enforcing a pushback policy, repeatedly force the migrants back across the demarcation line amid harsh weather and violence.[2][34] A parallel storyline follows Julia, a psychologist who relocates to the Podlasie region and inadvertently witnesses the crisis, prompting her to align with local activists providing humanitarian aid to stranded migrants despite legal restrictions and risks of arrest. [35] The film also examines the viewpoint of a young Polish border guard who grapples with orders to conduct pushbacks, highlighting internal conflicts within enforcement ranks as the situation escalates with the construction of a border wall and prolonged suffering in the exclusion zone. [2][36]Cast and Crew
Key Crew MembersAgnieszka Holland directed Green Border and co-wrote the screenplay with Maciej Pisuk and Gabriela Łazarkiewicz-Sieczko.[37] [38] The producers included Marcin Wierzchosławski, Fred Bernstein, and Agnieszka Holland, with executive producers such as Mike Downey and Samuel Erkoreka.[38] [39] Cast
The film features an ensemble cast portraying refugees, border guards, and activists involved in the 2021 Belarus–Poland border crisis. Principal actors and their roles include:
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Jalal Altawil | Bashir (Syrian refugee father) |
| Maja Ostaszewska | Julia (Polish activist and psychologist) |
| Behi Djanati Atai | Leila (Afghan refugee) |
| Tomasz Włosok | Jan (young Polish border guard) |
| Mohamad Al Rashi | Grandfather (Syrian refugee) |
| Agata Kulesza | Border guard superior |
| Maciej Stuhr | Activist leader |
| Talia Ajjan | Child refugee |