The turn of the previous century. As the seasons change, the life of the local people of Lipce is subordinated to the harvest and the will of nature, and the life of the village to laws and customs. The future of the young peasant Jagna is dictated by her family – she is forced to become the wife of the wealthy Maciej, although her heart lies with the son of her suitor, Antek. In order to keep her independence, she becomes the object of envy and hatred among the locals: the more she resists, the more she destroys the established order.
Several years ago, animation directors Dorota Kobiela Welchman and Hugh Welchman undertook an ambitious animation project using oil painting that involved 115 artists and 65,000 hand painted frames. The result is the animated feature film Loving Vincent (2017), about the artist Vincent van Gogh, which received an Oscar nomination. Continuing to work in the same technique, the two became fascinated by the 1924 Nobel Prize-winning novel by writer Władysław Reymont, about the fate of a young woman in the twists and turns of time, nature, and beliefs. This time, with artists from Poland, Serbia and Ukraine, they have created a timeless, painterly tale of man’s destructive and healing nature, finding in it similar motifs to the works of the Latvian writers Blaumanis and Virza.
Foreword by the programme curator: Maybe animation is just the right language with which to tell a forbidden love story that is more than a hundred years old? A literary classic that has spilled onto the screen in a painting magically brought to life.