JIFF: Filip

“One of the bravest films about war that have been made in Poland in recent decades. Brilliantly played, produced with panache and dramatic precision, Filip looks at the story from an unobvious perspective.” — Culture PL

In its bold focus on romantic pleasures and quality of life amid barbarity, Filip breaks every film cliché about the Nazi era and the Holocaust. In a wartime Frankfurt where horrors and trauma don't exclude the ecstasies and intrigues of the young, Filip, a waiter at the city's top hotel, is a clandestine Jewish refugee from the Warsaw Ghetto whose life depends on the ruse that he is French.

For foreign workers in race-mad Germany, fraternizing with Aryan women is punishable by death—and confident, seductive Filip violates this prohibition repeatedly, passionately, and brazenly. Expressive cinematography and period-perfect costumes offer a bracing contrast with an unexpectedly sharp character study of a man caught between the quest for survival and the hunger for revenge.

Rating

Unclass18+

Duration

124 min

Language

Polish, German, French, Yiddish (English subs)

Director

Michal Kwiecinski