Agnieszka Holland on Victims of Minneapolis and ‘American Propaganda’

According to Agnieszka Holland, Oscar-nominated director and Göteborg’s Honorary Dragon Award winner, reality is still important in today’s world. But it’s simple to twist.  

“It happened during Stalin’s propaganda and Goebbels’ propaganda. It showed how easy it is to change the meaning of the words and how fragile they are. Sometimes it feels they’re becoming less and less important, like when we are listening to what American propaganda is saying about the victims of the shooting in Minneapolis.”

Her 2019 movie, “Mr. Jones,” mirrored that sentiment. It’s based on the true story of journalist Gareth Jones, who wrote about the Holodomor, the famine in Ukraine that killed thousands and thousands. 

“He tried to tell the truth about what was going on, but no one was interested. When the media are corrupted and play with the truth regarding political and ideological agendas, democracy dies. We are in that moment right now,” she said. 

“A fact is not abstract. It happens. You see a dead person – that’s a fact. We have to be humble now and [realize] that ‘truth’ is different for different people. So let’s stick to the facts.”

Holland, whose unconventional Kafka biopic “Franz” was Poland’s Oscar submission, is understood for being politically outspoken. Whether she’s discussing the women’s strike against abortion regulation modification or the disaster at the Polish-Belarusian border. She depicted the latter in “Green Border,” which proved massively controversial in her native nation and threatened her personal security. 

“It provoked incredibly violent attacks from Polish authorities and some far-right members of the Polish population. There were a lot of threats. In Poland, I had to travel with bodyguards, which was one of the funniest experiences I’ve had,” she recalled. 

“Their first task was to protect me during the public premiere in Warsaw. But so many people were hugging me and grabbing my hand – apparently the worst thing that can happen to a bodyguard. By the end of the evening, they were sweating. They said it was the worst experience in their professional lives.”

At the Swedish pageant, Holland – identified for “Europa Europa,” “The Secret Garden,” “Washington Square” or “Total Eclipse,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio – opened up about her difficult post-war childhood, which formed her. 

“The experiences of my parents were very intense. The trauma they lived through marked them forever. It also marked me somehow,” she said. 

“I was a witness to their weakness and to their strength, to their vitality and their depression, and it certainly made me more mature and tolerant. I understood I can’t expect people to always be flawless and strong and that I can’t really count on them.”

Growing up amid the destruction in Warsaw – “the ruins were my playground” – made her delicate to her environment. Later, her father died in mysterious circumstances. 

“He was very disappointed when the truth about Stalin’s crimes became public, and he became a party dissident. In 1961 he was arrested, and he committed suicide during the investigation.”

Holland’s worldwide profession started when she left Poland to advertise her movie “Provincial Actors.” When martial regulation was imposed in 1981, she was in Sweden. Initially reluctant to speak about the state of affairs – which is also at the middle of her daughter Kasia Adamik’s movie “Winter of the Crow” – she later modified her thoughts. 

“I was afraid it’d cost me too much. Then a Swedish journalist I knew hugged me and said: ‘Our poor Poland.’ I thought: ‘Fuck. That guy is crying, and I am Polish! I have to fight for my country’.”

Still, Holland doesn’t dwell on the past – or past successes – an excessive amount of. What’s the movie she’s most glad with?

“Always the last.” 

Although the energy of cinema has been “evaporating” since the Eighties, she’s not giving up just yet. 

“Now, when the world has become complicated and dangerous again, maybe it’s when a new generation of the filmmakers will emerge. And make people go to the cinema again to have the collective experience of receiving important images and important messages,” she said. 

“Maybe we will reach some kind of a wall or an abyss, and if we survive, there will be a resurrection of a new world with new values. After every disaster in human history, something good has come out of it. If we survive as a planet, the next step will be the new progress. That is my optimism.”