Agnieszka Holland Takes Cinema By Storm With Green Border Box Office Success
It’s all eyes on director Agnieszka Holland who recently reached a new milestone for her latest feature film ‘Green Border’, which topped the Polish Box Office for the second week in a row after achieving over 137,000 admissions during its opening weekend and grossing 8.5m Polish Zloty ($1.9million) in tickets sales. This comes only a short while after the film’s successful award season, where it managed to pick up the Special Jury Prize at the 80th annual Venice Film Festival, as well as key nominations from TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) and the European Film Awards for Best Feature Film.
Critics have flocked to give their praise to the film, with Time Out remarking that “Agnieszka Holland’s devastating refugee epic reverberates with deep empathy and quiet fury”. Agnieszka has also been especially lauded for her thought-provoking directorial style, as commented by Vulture magazine “That Holland manages to tell all of these stories in a way that’s believable, devastatingly unflinching, and narratively compelling all at once is nothing short of miraculous”.
The refugee drama is produced by Caviar’s Beluga Tree Productions (headed by Diana Elbaum and David Ragonig), in collaboration with several major European film studios including Blick Productions, Metro Films, Marlene Film Productions and Caviar Brussels, with the sales and distribution handled by Films Boutique and September Film.
Green Border follows the lives of several people whose lives are irrevocably changed when they find themselves trapped at the Polish-Belarusian border after a recent humanitarian crisis and have to struggle to survive. The film also features stunning performances from Syrian actor Jalal Al Tawil (Vampire 2020, Eden 2019) as well as Polish actors Maja Ostaszewska (The In-Laws, The Pitbull Series 2016) and Tomasz Wlosok (How I Became A Gangster 2020, Raven 2018) among others.
Despite its continued record-breaking success at the box office and critical acclaim from global publications like Vogue, as well as The Hollywood Reporter who dubbed the film “Profoundly moving, flawlessly executed”, the film has also faced heavy criticism from Poland’s right-wing government. Speaking on the controversy, Green Border producer Mike Downey noted “The Polish people have voted with their feet….to get to number one with this controversial film bears witness to the depth of feeling that is in Poland on this subject”.
The film just recently made its US debut at the New York Film Festival and is set to debut next in the Czech Republic later this month, before launching in Ukraine. It is also set to host two exclusive screenings at the European Parliament and the Vatican’s 27th annual Tertio Millenio Film Festival in November, where Agnieszka will be honoured with the festival’s coveted Fuoricampo prize.
Watch the ground-breaking trailer for Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border below, out now in selected European locations.