Jak najdalej stad
The film starts in Poland. Ola during her driving test: her mobile ringtone is a vehement "Fuck the police" rap. That says a lot about this maladjusted young woman who lives in constant conflict with her mother and with loving affection for her paralysed brother. Shortly afterwards the action is transferred to Dublin and a labyrinth of shadowy employment agencies, a rather weird undertaker and a series of shady dealings that make intra-European labour migration look anything but a bright prospect.
Seventeen-year-old Ola is sent from Poland to Dublin to arrange the transfer of her father’s body, after he died in a container port. Initially interested in finding the money that her father had promised her, she instead encounters a deplorable state of affairs and a number of administrative irregularities in European labour migration.
In a moving film, lead actress Zofia Stafiej shows tremendous poise and presence in portraying the inner transformation of Ola amid remarkable hardship.
Well written and subtly acted and staged, the film ably balances the personal narrative of its protagonist longing for change with a powerful portrait of a society marked by social imbalance.