WARSAW: which won the best foreign language film Oscar on Sunday -- is a haunting and controversial drama that lays bare the difficult legacy of the Nazi occupation of Poland and post-war Stalinist rule.
The black-and-white film shot with uncompromising honesty by Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski has sparked criticism at home, while earning awards abroad, including a BAFTA.
"We made a film about ... the need for silence and withdrawal from the world and contemplation, and here we are. At the epicenter of noise and world attention. Fantastic, you know," Pawlikowski told the Oscars audience at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
"Life is full of surprises."
The film tells the story of Ida, a young woman in 1960s communist Poland who learns as she is about to take her vows at a Catholic convent that she is Jewish, her parents were murdered under Nazi occupation at the time of the Holocaust, and she was raised by the nuns.
The young woman, played by newcomer Agata Trzebuchowska, embarks on a journey of self-discovery with her aunt, a disillusioned Stalinist-era official who is a tool in the regime's persecution of opponents.
The film explores topics that are nearly taboo in Poland -- including the killing of Jews during the Nazi occupation by Poles with whom they sought refuge, a fact swept under the rug in the post-war period.
It also takes an unsparing look at the role of Jewish communists in post-war Poland's security services and judiciary, which were known for torturing and slaughtering regime opponents -- a role that was obscured for decades until communism fell in 1989.
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