Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, Cottbus 2020

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.