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SILENT TREES

DRZEWA MILCZĄ

By Agnieszka ZWIEFKA

SO FILMS - as DISTR Theatrical, POLAND / PROMO

Documentary - Completed 2024

Runa, a sixteen-year-old Kurdish girl, fled Iraq with her family from ISIS attacks and, like many others, got confined on the Polish-Belarusian border. After losing her mother, she must grow up at an accelerated pace to take care of her four younger brothers and her father.

- Year of production
- 2024
- Genres
- Documentary, Animation, Social issues
- Countries
- POLAND, GERMANY, DENMARK
- Languages
- KURDISH, ENGLISH, POLISH
- Duration
- 84 mn
- Director(s)
- Agnieszka ZWIEFKA
- Producer(s)
- Agnieszka ZWIEFKA (Chilli Productions), Zofia KUJAWSKA (Chilli Productions)
- Synopsis
- Runa, a sixteen-year-old Kurdish girl, fled Iraq with her family from ISIS attacks and, like many others, got confined on the Polish-Belarusian border. She finally manages to reach Poland, but the price she pays for safety and asylum is unimaginable. Her mother, in an advanced stage of pregnancy, dies in the hospital due to exhaustion and the conditions in the border forest. Now Runa must grow up at an accelerated pace - she becomes the head of the family to take care of her four younger brothers and her father, who cannot cope with the growing difficulties.
  
  The film accompanies the uncertain fate of the entire family, which struggles with trauma and the threat of deportation while staying in a refugee camp. In the foreground, however, there is a portrait of an seemingly ordinary, but at the same time extraordinary teenager. Runa loves drawing, listening to music and is learning Polish, dreaming of studying law. Her escape from everyday life is a sketchbook, which she fills with chronicler's care with subsequent images, telling her story, suspended in time and space. At the same time, with great maturity, she tries to lead the family to a new chapter of life and boldly look into the uncertain future. Will Runa be able to find peace and a new home for herself and her loved ones? ‘Silent Trees’ is a creative fusion of documentary cinema and animation infused by drawings of a young heroine.
  
  The world premiere of the film took place at the prestigious CPH:DOX Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival in Denmark, and the North American premiere at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in Canada. Polish viewers saw the film for the first time at the Krakow Film Festival in both International and National Competitions, where it received four accolades, including main award - a Golden Hobby Horse for the director of the best documentary film in the National Competition and Special Mention for the director in the International Competition, as well as the recommendation for the European Film Awards.