Collection

The movie inaugurating the “Polish Trilogy” by Bartana where the complicated Polish-Jewish relations serve as a starting point to construct a more universal narration about the stranger and the newcomer. Sławomir Sierakowski (the leader of a circle of left-wing intellectuals Krytyka Polityczna (The Political Critique) and founder and editor-in-chief of a journal of the same title) impersonates an activist calling for the return of Polish Jews to Poland. On the deserted 10th Anniversary Stadium he delivers an ardent speech: „Jews, Fellow-citizens! People! Peeeople!!!!! This is an appeal, yet not an appeal of the fallen but an appeal for life. We want three million of Jews to return to Poland and we want you, the Jewish people, to live with us again. We need you! Please, come back!". The artist refers to a universal propaganda film esthetics, evoking Triumph of the Will by Leni Riefenstahl (1934) (where a stadium becomes an arena of political manipulation) as well as early Zion film chronicles for the Jews who settle on Palestine land.