Agnieszka Holland on migration: Europe must choose ‘between comfort and values’

Agnieszka Holland is a prolific Polish director. In a profession spanning greater than fifty years, she has scored quite a few essential successes, together with her movies Europa Europa (1990) and In Darkness (2011). Her work has gained quite a few awards.

Her newest movie, Inexperienced Border (launched in 2023 in Poland) depicts the therapy of migrants on the Polish-Belarusian border. Inexperienced Border, which has been vilified by Poland’s far proper, gained the Particular Jury Prize on the Venice Movie Pageant in 2023. We met her on the premiere in Brussels.

Voxeurop: Why did you make this movie?

Agnieszka Holland: I have been following the migration state of affairs carefully since 2015. I’ve watched Europe’s confused, cowardly and inconsistent response. However when the problem got here knocking at my door, I felt obliged to talk out. Not least as a result of I’ve devoted a lot of my profession to telling the tales of crimes towards humanity.

Your movie was controversial, and you’ve got been threatened and abused. How are you at the moment, how do you are feeling?

It is getting higher, as a result of the ultra-conservative nationalist authorities that attacked me misplaced the election. In fact, the nation has not modified utterly. The previous authorities undermined the regulation and establishments with their very own unconstitutional legal guidelines and now it is rather exhausting to undo this. Particularly because the nation’s president nonetheless comes from this conservative occasion [the far-right Law and Justice party, PiS]. He cannot stand any try to vary legal guidelines. [The democratic battle] has been gained, but it surely’s not straightforward to translate into actuality.

Then again, though the ambiance has modified, there are nonetheless 30-35% of the inhabitants who assist this authoritarian populism, which has the attraction of nationalism and is commonly tinged with racism.

However the individuals who went to see the movie have been very moved and requested a number of trustworthy and vital questions. And that is what we wished to awaken: an consciousness that we should withstand a state of affairs that’s occurring not simply in Poland, however throughout Europe.

Have the assaults on you calmed down?

Sure, and this authorities has no curiosity or authority in attacking me, even when it continues to take action in small methods. However we dwell in a divided world, and Polish society may be very polarised, fairly like American society. Populists have this expertise for manipulating the human mind to the purpose the place individuals begin to comply with them, like a cult. You see it with Trump and his supporters. In Poland it is not on the identical degree after all, and the nation is on a unique scale too, however the state of affairs is comparable.

In any case we have been an awesome success with the viewers. I feel that by asking these questions, and by exhibiting the human beings who have been depicted by the propaganda as paedophile terrorists, zoophiles, and weapons of Lukashenka, we managed to open up the controversy, and likewise to awaken a type of collective empathy.

Talking of the change of regime, it is true that migration coverage was notably brutal within the Poland of PiS. Are you extra optimistic now?

For the second, we aren’t seeing any main adjustments. They’ve fired just a few officers, together with probably the most senior border guards who have been the face of the brutality. However the coverage shouldn’t be altering, or not a lot. We’re placing stress on them, speaking to them, and listening to that the push-backs are crucial however that they are going to be carried out humanely, which is an oxymoron.

However no less than they don’t seem to be mendacity, they don’t seem to be saying terrible issues, they don’t seem to be utilizing Nazi and racist language. We will have a dialogue with them, and we will sustain the stress. Public opinion is extra delicate than it was just a few months in the past.

Is it that violence is critical for the dehumanisation of refugees, an important situation for the authorities to behave as they do?

Sure. To start with, I am delicate to the state of affairs of migrants at our borders as a result of I recognise the trail that a number of nations have embarked upon. I made three movies concerning the Shoah, concerning the years 1930-1940. I see how sure issues have began to occur once more. First, it is the choice: you determine who has the suitable to dwell, to be handled with dignity. Then you definitely dehumanise them.

The Polish state propaganda was shameless. The inside minister held a press convention that grew to become infamous – in Poland at any charge – the place he stated that [migrants] have been not likely individuals, that they have been initially Lukashenka’s weapons, terrorists, rapists, paedophiles and zoophiles. The goal was actually to create worry, and likewise to deprive these individuals of their voice and their particular person destinies, to point out them as a harmful and repulsive mass.

So, in spite of everything this repression, after these push-backs, after the brutality, the ultimate stage is annihilation. That is what scares me. As a result of I hear the phrases of sure right-wing politicians, who discuss overtly about utilizing weapons towards refugees, each in Europe – in Italy, for instance, or within the Netherlands – and in Texas.

So what ought to we do politically?

Above all, we must always withstand the state of affairs: analyse it, focus on it, search for the explanations, and likewise attempt to change individuals’s minds. Not by scary them, however by exhibiting them optimistic photos of actuality. In spite of everything, Europe is shrinking, it’s a continent that’s disappearing demographically, it’s ageing, and it wants new residents.

However I feel it is essentially a selection between consolation and values. In case you have a look at the implications of at the moment’s state of affairs, you see that the logical subsequent step is, for instance, not simply to push the boats again into the Mediterranean however to bomb them, and to create a type of fortress the place we shoot anybody who comes shut sufficient to remove our consolation. After which that is the tip of the Europe of democracy and human rights.

However some European residents, who could also be delicate to the arguments of the far proper with out essentially being fascists or neo-Nazis, are genuinely afraid of what refugees may carry.

Sure, after all. That is why I say that the selection is between consolation and values. As a result of we’re very privileged in Europe, and we must always share our comforts at such instances as these. It is a type of extending rights. You understand, 300 years in the past, rights solely belonged to wealthy, heterosexual, white males. However then we accepted that kids additionally had rights, as did girls, slaves, individuals of color, homosexuals, and so forth. We make progress, however there’s all the time a backlash from those that have a monopoly on the regulation. And it is a lot the identical with migration.

In any case, we’ve got to keep away from accepting the language of the far proper and the fascists. I refuse to speak about migrants as something aside from human beings with their very own lives, their very own decisions, their very own wants – the identical primary wants as ours. And it is our accountability to share.

It was attention-grabbing to see how simply and enthusiastically the Poles opened their properties to Ukrainian refugees. Poland has welcomed greater than 1,000,000 newcomers, and nothing horrible has occurred. The nation has not grow to be poorer, quite the opposite, it has some financial advantages. Individuals are additionally extra beneficiant. You understand, individuals are usually narcissistic. Once they look within the mirror – until they seem to be a bit bizarre – they wish to see magnificence mirrored again.

Inexperienced Border is a really powerful, very brutal movie. As you say, it is fairly pessimistic about what Europe is at the moment. However for you, what’s Europe? Is it nonetheless an exquisite challenge that must be defended?

Completely, it is an exquisite challenge, some of the stunning tasks of humanity. To let it fail could be a horrible waste. It will value a number of human lives, not simply the lives of migrants, individuals from elsewhere, but additionally the lives of our white residents. I am fairly pessimistic, as a result of I feel it is all the time a lot simpler to domesticate evil than to domesticate good.

Right here, the accountability of the authorities, whether or not political or spiritual, is gigantic. In the present day’s world is so sophisticated and filled with challenges that individuals are misplaced. Modernity is extraordinarily advanced and there are such a lot of risks. Individuals are in search of somebody to inform them “we’ve got quite simple solutions to your advanced questions, we all know what to do”. And these populists win as a result of they supply precisely that reply. However even for those who give it a unique title, the fact would not change, it is nonetheless there.