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JAMESON DUBLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2014SUNDAY 16TH FEBRUARYIDA (POLISH GALA)The Polish-born director Pawel Pawlikowski grabbedattention at the beginning of the last decadewith two brilliant and intensely English pictures:Last Resort and My Summer of Love. Now he hasreturned with an arresting period movie from theheart of post-war Poland – and from his own heart,too. Every moment of Ida feels intensely personal.It is a small gem, tender and bleak, funny and sad,superbly photographed in luminous monochrome.‘richly sympathetic and deeply moving’Time OutSun 16 Feb / Light House 1 / 8.15pm / 80 minutesDirector: Pawel Pawlikowski 2013 PolandWriters: Rebecca Lenkiewicz, Pawel PawlikowskiCast: Agata Kulesza, Agata Trzebuchowska, David OgrodnikWinner, Best Film, BFI London Film FestivalWith the support of the Embassy of PolandNewcomer Agata Trzebuchowska plays Anna, anovice nun about to take her final vows in a conventwhere she was left on the doorstep as a baby in 1945.But Anna has one surviving relative with whom sheis encouraged to make contact. This turns out to beher aunt, Wanda Gruz, tremendously played by AgataKulesza: a worldly, hard-drinking woman who liveson her own. Wanda reveals the truth to her niece:Anna’s first name is Ida and she is Jewish. Now Idaand Wanda must set out to discover what happenedto Ida’s parents during the war. Pawlikowski’s film tellsus a powerful, poignant story with fine, intelligentperformances from Kulesza and Trzebuchowska.Peter BradshawThe GuardianWith special guest David OgrodnikSTANDING ASIDE, WATCHINGNA KATHESAI KAI NA KOITAS‘It’s easy for someone to turn into a jerk,’ the heroine’sfather wisely observes. ‘To just stand aside, watching.’The gulf between passive acceptance and activeresistance is at the heart of Standing Aside, Watching,a compelling thriller from Greek director YorgosServetas.‘draw[s] not only on classical Greek tragedy but also, grippingly,on the codes of the Western’ The Hollywood ReporterSun 16 Feb / Light House 3 / 8.30pm / 90 minutesWriter-director: Yorgos Servetas 2013 GreeceCast: Marina Symeou, Nikos Yorgakis, Yorgos KafetzopoulosWhen Antigone (played with steely determination byMarina Symeou), returns home after years in Athens,she finds her small coastal town, and the townsfolkthemselves, in an advanced state of moral decay.Undaunted, Antigone sets about making the best.She gets a job in the local school and rekindles herfriendship with fellow teacher Eleni. She dates Nikos,a handsome and naïve local youth, and even adoptsa stray dog. But, like her mythological namesake,Antigone is a strong-willed heroine who takesexception to the status quo, and it’s not long beforethe activities of a local thug compel her to speak out,with dire consequences for everyone involved.Shot with taut economy and a poetic eye, YorgosServetas’ second feature is at once a thriller filledwith simmering tension, a coruscating portrait ofsmall-town corruption and a penetrating study of thecorrosive effects of poverty on the soul of Greece.Alistair DanielBOOK ONLINE AT JDIFF.COM 49