Mary Koszmary

Slawomir Sierakowski, a young Polish radical leftist, gives a speech in a Warsaw stadium, which was one of the favourite places for political rallies during the years of the Polish Republic (1921-1939). The speech reflects the aesthetic of nationalist propaganda films, but its content runs counter not only to the style, but to everything on which that style is based. He speaks before an almost empty stadium, where only a few young people listen to his words. Sierakowski describes the cultural and linguistic consequences of the departure of the Jews after the Second World War to Israel, and calls on the Polish Jews to return to Poland. By citing the style of old nationalistic propaganda films Bartana stresses the similarities between the ideological and visual in this film, in which the speech functions as a form of resistance. Ultimately Bartana is interested in the possibilities (and impossibilities) of the content of the speech and the anti-Semitic and racist questions that a film like this raises.