New Zanussi movie tackles Poland's religious divide

Image: Toronto Film Festival

The film, which will go on general release in Poland this December, has been described by the Toronto festival as a “lacerating vision of contemporary Poland.”

Foreign Body explores the plight of Italian Angelo (Riccardo Leonelli) who falls for fellow Catholic Kasia (Agata Buzek) while on a religious retreat in Italy.

However, Kasia is decided on taking her vows and entering a Polish nunnery, which Angelo tries to prevent by following her to Warsaw, where he takes a job in an international corporation.

Once in Warsaw, Angelo finds that his cynical new boss Kris (Agnieszka Grochowska) is keen to push him to transgress his moral code.

“Foreign Body was a difficult project to develop,” Zanussi has said.

“It is based on an original script which worked on the assumption that it would evolve into a serious conversation with a demanding viewer.”

Zanussi was a leading proponent of the so-called “Cinema of Moral Anxiety” of the seventies and early eighties, probing chinks in Poland's communist reality.

His latest film was partly financed by the Polish Film Institute (PISF).

The Toronto International Film Festival runs until 14 September. (nh)

Source: onet.pl, filmneweurope.com