At the end of the movie, you point out that many Ukrainian refugees were absorbed into Poland during the war, and yet you didn’t have the chaos that you depicted in Green Border.
Yeah. Well, they are white.
Unfortunately. It’s like that. It’s maybe not the only reason. It was much more easy for the people to imagine their pain and situation because they are the neighbors, because they speak a similar language, because we have the common enemy, Mr. Putin. So, you know, somehow it’s easier to embrace somebody you understand better and can identify with easily.
My movie was also made to open that scale. You know, actually, the people who started to help three years ago at that border on the high price because it was extremely stressful, and it consumed your body and soul entirely at the time.
And at the same time, you were persecuted by your own government, but they cannot stop because they feel such a bond suddenly with those people in need that they, they’re afraid that when they stopped, somebody would die. So it was a very interesting specific situation of the dependence on helping.
“A border situation is the most challenging and most interesting for drama.”
Here in the United States, Garrett Graff lamented in Politico that our border system had been recruiting Rambo when some of the refugee crises required Mother Theresa instead.
My friends who were involved with these activities never wanted to be Rambos, and they had to be somebody better than Mother Theresa because she was an abuser. A border situation is the most challenging and most interesting for drama.
For the storytelling. I was thinking about The Underground Railroad, the novel, and the (Amazon) series.
Even as you’ve gone on making films, it’s not like you’ve made anything safe as you’ve gotten older. Why do you think that is?
I don’t know, Dan. Frankly, I think it’s me. I think that when I see something that I feel is important to myself and probably humanity and that I am the person who can tell that story, and I don’t see many other people who are willing or are able to do it, I’m doing it.
