Switzerland, Poland 2022, 52/84 min, A First Hand Films Production
by Hanka Nobis
Polish Prayers
Antek, 22, grows up in a deeply religious and radical right-wing family in contemporary Poland. Catholicism, nationalism and especially celibacy define his world.Over several years, filmmaker Hanka Nobis follows him, his friends and his family with her crew. She sees Antek enjoy his growing power in the Brotherhood, a small group of like-minded young men. But when he falls in love, doubts begin to set in.
It is the women, the tender, difficult, exciting relationships with them, through which Antek learns to really be a man. The film follows him from when he has all the answers to the many questions any young man needs to answer for himself, and his family.
Antek practically lives a double life, praying the rosary with a megaphone in the marketplace of Wroclaw during the day to "save Christians from persecution and Europe from Islamisation" and getting drunk with young women at techno parties at night.
Not everything is as it should be at home either. Antek's mother has left his father and taken his little brothers and sisters with her, and Antek is torn in his loyalty between his father, who is his role model, and his mother, who supports him but challenges traditional values with her emancipation.
DOC NYC, IDFA Luminous, Solothurn (Competition), DocPoint Tallinn, Thessaloniki, CPH:DOX Change Makers / Doc Alliance Award, One World Prague, Docs Against Gravity Poland, Barcelona, Kosovo, Locarno (Panorama Suisse), South Korea, Zurich Film Award (Best Director)