Ida

Pawel Pawlikowski's critically acclaimed Ida is a moving and intimate drama about a young novitiate nun in 1960s Poland who discovers a dark family secret dating back to the years of the Nazi occupation. 18-year-old Anna (stunning newcomer Agata Trzebuchowska), a sheltered orphan raised in a convent, is preparing to become a nun when the Mother Superior insists she first visit her sole living relative. Naiive, innocent Anna soon finds herself in the presence of her aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza), a worldly and cynical Communist Party insider who shocks her with the declaration that her real name is Ida and her Jewish parents were murdered during the Nazi occupation. This revelation triggers a heart-wrenching journey into the countryside, to the family house and into the secrets of the repressed past, evoking the haunting legacy of the Holocaust and the realities of postwar Communism. With this beautifully directed Oscar winning drama, Pawlikowski returns to his native Poland for the first time in his career to confront some of the more contentious issues in the history of his birthplace. Powerfully written and eloquently shot, Ida a masterly evocation of a time, a dilemma, and a defining historical moment. (Artificial Eye)