Far from Poland is the most important film by the American director and theorist Jill Godmilow (born 1943), inspired by the strikes at the Gdańsk Shipyard in August 1980. It is a groundbreaking work in the history of experimental documentary filmmaking which challenged the conventional ways of building the narrative and pursued reflection on the medium itself and its limitations in representing political events and conflicts. The film about the Solidarity trade union became a manifesto of the innovative concept of “dramatary”—a dramatized documentary that inhabits the borderland of non-fiction cinema, feature film and contemporary art. In August 1980, the artist stayed in Poland to shoot a film about Jerzy Grotowski, and after her return to New York she could no longer count on obtaining another visa. Still, she decided to tell the story of the then nascent Solidarity in her film Far from Poland. The main axis of the work is formed by three staged interviews published in 1981 in the Polish press: with Anna Walentynowicz, a censor code-named K62, and a miner, whose figure was created on the basis of several journalistic materials. Godmilow’s re-enactment marks one of the pioneering applications of this now widespread performative strategy. The staged scenes are interlaced with excerpts from reportage from Poland and purely fictional footage.
Jill Godmilow, Far from Poland, duration: 106’11”, 1984
