Refugee drama Green Border began as Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland was watching on, in horror, as the migration crisis deepened in Europe. ‘I was interested in what kind of response the right wing and nationalistic populist Polish government would take,’ she says over Zoom. ‘And they took the worst possible, in my opinion . . . propaganda and violence against innocent people.’ All of a sudden, the border crossing between Poland and Belarus became a ‘laboratory’ of violence, where humanitarian and media organisations were forbidden.

It was at this point that veteran director Holland, an Oscar nominee for her 1990 film Europa Europa, decided to make her movie. ‘If the state legalised the violence and criminalised the help, it is a moment where I have to sound some kind of alarm,’ she says. The result, shot in black-and-white, is one of the most powerful films you’ll see this year, a jigsaw-like story following disparate groups of characters, including activists and border guards, as a Syrian family attempts to cross into Poland and the EU from Belarus. 

Among other honours, Green Border was awarded the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival when it premiered last autumn. But it was then that trouble brewed back home, as the 75-year-old Holland came under attack from her own government. ‘I was expecting the worst,’ she admits, ‘but I wasn’t expecting that it would be led directly and personally by the highest politicians.’ The justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, of the Catholic nationalist Sovereign Poland party, compared Green Border to a Nazi Germany propaganda film ‘showing Poles as bandits and murderers’. 

Even the president, Andrzej Duda, weighed in, pointing to how ‘millions of Poles opened their hearts’ and welcomed Ukrainian refugees into their homes. ‘How do these people feel today when they see that a renowned director . . . is making a film slandering Poles and Poland?’ Holland sighs when she thinks back to this ‘heated time’ and a ‘hateful campaign against myself, some actors and the movie’. Worryingly, Holland received death threats and even had to employ security for fear she might be attacked. ‘It was a new experience for me, to be afraid on the streets.’

So how did she feel about the president citing Poland’s response to the Russia-Ukraine conflict? ‘It poses a lot of questions,’ she says. ‘Why are those refugees so welcome? And others . . . no. And racism is one response for sure. Because racism became, I think, an important phenomenon in contemporary societies, not only in Poland but in many places. But I don’t want to be judgmental . . . I understand the fear of people; I also understand the questions of security, especially when we have full-scale war so close to the borders.’

Among the most affecting strands of Green Border is that of Polish border guard Jan (Tomasz Włosok), who bears witness (and then participates) in jaw-dropping atrocities. Holland took great pains researching these elements, speaking to real guards, many of whom underwent something akin to post-traumatic stress disorder. ‘It was very much what we imagined; some of them became very traumatised, some of them felt guilty; some of their colleagues felt very powerful when inflicting pain on weaker people.’

One thing is certain: Green Border will not be shown in Belarus, where hardliner Alexander Lukashenko remains president. ‘There you have afraid people and very courageous people who are in prison, and you have very cruel people who are serving the government,’ says Holland. ‘But I don’t like to say that Belarusians are like that. So you always have to try to meet the human being; and I’m sure you can meet the human being, even among the Belarusian guards.’ 
Green Border is in cinemas from Friday 21 June.