KRESY

Fate in the former Polish eastern territories began in 1939 with the Soviet annexation in the framework of the German-Soviet Frontier Treaty, which sealed the division of the country between Hitler-Germany and the Soviet Union shortly after the German invasion of Poland. In 1941 these areas came into German hands. In 1939 on this territory which was added to the Ukrainian Soviet republic, occurred riots and massacres by Ukrainian nationalists on Poles living there. In 1945, the resettlement of the Poles began in the former German eastern territories, Poland's new "Golden West", which quickly became the "Wild West" due to the unstructured settlement policy.

The eponymous Polish term KRESY refers not only to geographic, but also psychological "border areas". And that's what director Rafał Bryll is uncovering: it’s oral history in the best sense of the word, he's interested in the scars that the course of history has left on the souls of his contemporary witnesses. He reminds them of the lost paradise, the war, the resettlement and the seriousness of the new beginning. A Film about uprooting and trying to find your own identity in another place. RB