Written by Duration 29′ 30″ –
A Polish Journey unfolds as a meditation on displacement and return, shaped by a story that lingered in the shadows for decades. My father’s life was uprooted when he was conscripted into the German army during the Second World War—an experience that left him unable, or unwilling, ever to return to his homeland. For me, travelling back to Poland with my son felt like an act of reconciliation, a long-delayed homecoming that carried the weight of generations. What began as a search for a subject to explore migration became, at the eleventh hour, the realisation that the story I had been looking for was my own.
The making of this film stretched me in unexpected ways. There was vulnerability in giving voice to the narrative, in speaking openly about my father’s alcoholism, and in revealing the German army passbook with all its political charge. The work became a process of shedding shame as much as uncovering history, allowing the personal to settle beside the collective.
Music breathes through the film’s structure. I began with a Chopin composition, letting it fragment into a series of improvisations shaped around the seven ages of man. These musical sketches were created before principal photography, becoming the emotional compass for the journey. They played through the car stereo as we travelled, forming a quiet undercurrent to the landscapes and conversations, and only in the final section does the full piano piece reveal itself—whole, resolved, and earned.
Sharing the journey with my son coloured everything. He is a photographer, and the body of work he created is part of the project, adding another layer of perspective—another set of eyes inheriting and interpreting the past. To move through Poland together, three generations removed from my father’s departure, was both grounding and profoundly moving.
Poland itself offered a backdrop of contrasts. Though the country has transformed rapidly since the fall of the Soviet Union, moving steadily toward modernity, traces of the past still lingered at the time of filming. Old buildings—survivors of war and the long 20th century—stood quietly amid change, holding stories of endurance in their worn facades.
Ultimately, A Polish Journey is a film about hope and reconciliation. Viewers have often spoken of being deeply moved, inspired to seek out their own histories, to uncover the buried threads of their families’ migrations and silences. If the film encourages even a single person to walk back toward their own origins with openness, then the journey has been worth every mile.