Cold War

Director: Pawel Pawlikowski

Cast: Joanna Kulig, Tomasz Kot, Borys Szyc

Genre: Drama

Duration: 88 minutes – Polish/ French with English subtitles (2018)

Cold War is a passionate love story between a music director and a singer who meet in the ruins of post-war Poland. With vastly different backgrounds and temperaments, they are fatefully mismatched and yet condemned to each other. Set against the background of the Cold War in 1950’s Poland, Berlin, Yugoslavia and Paris, it’s the tale of a couple separated by politics, character flaws and unfortunate twists of fate – an impossible love story in impossible times.

With exquisitely nuanced and purposeful framings for this interior journey of the heart, and stunning music, Pawlikowski has created a sumptuous black and white masterpiece of auteur cinema. Already a 2015 Oscar- winner with Ida (another black and white work of art), Pawlikowski won the Best Director Award at Cannes in 2018 for Cold War which then went on to earn three Oscar nominations at the Academy Awards in 2019. Also amongst its very long list of achievements were five European Film Awards in 2018.

‘Cold War is a remarkable, haunting film about a fiery but doomed romance against the backdrop of history, a film greatly fired up by the two excellent romantic leads and its jazz score.’ Michael J. Casey, Boulder Weekly.

‘All’s fair in love and war in this film about two individuals who cannot live with nor without each other.’ Jorge Castilo, Prairie Dog Magazine.