“We give this award to a new voice. The proposal was very affecting and unanimously stood out to the jury members as a love poem that is rooted in global events but elevates through its human connections. The film maker has cleverly curated a thought-provoking space of constant transitions taking us on a journey to the very essence of humanity." These are the words with which the jury supported their choice of the winner of this year’s East Doc Platform’s main award.
Inner Landscapes, the project presented by a group of up-and-coming Polish filmmakers, did however not catch just their eyes, as it was awarded two prizes at the EDP. In collaboration with DocsBarcelona, the DocsBarcelona Award 2025 enables the winners to present their project on the Speed Meetings at the 2025 DocsBarcelona Industry and this year it is the team of Inner Landscapes that gets to go to Barcelona in May.
About the project:
For many days, a solitary train traverses the endless wilderness. This film odyssey is a journey beyond time and space - days and seasons change, and an infinite steppe stretches out the window. In the cramped train interior, travellers from around the world meet. In this modern Tower of Babel, nationalities, languages, and religions intermingle. Each compartment holds a different story. Samudra and his father Pradyumna set out on their first journey together. It's also the first trip for Dinara’s newborn baby, or the romantic honeymoon of Silke and Kieran. The train is a workplace not only for the conductor or restaurant staff, but also for Jandos, a painter, or Dima, a clown. During the long journey, hidden emotions surface. Bashar and Ahmed face the spectre of war they lived through. Sodaba fears returning to her fatherland where, as a woman, she has no rights. For Yelle and Sten, time is their greatest enemy - after fifty years together, they can't imagine parting. Ivan and Vova, coming from hostile countries, confront each other, just as Zangar and Banu attempt to resolve their marital crisis. Yet, this journey leads to light. In a divided and restless world, much still binds people together. The protagonists love, dream, and fight for what they believe in. Everyone has their own story - and it often connects with another's, even if they come from the other side of the world. "Inner Landscapes" is a cinematic poem told through the words of people who set out to discover something meaningful about themselves.
Zofia Sawicka, the director of the film, got inspired to make this film by her own train journey through Central Asia. She is producing the film with Zofia Kujawska and Maciej Kubicki (Telemark), whom she pitched the movie to after coming back to Poland.
I talked to the director of the movie together with her producer Zofia Kujawska about their experience developing their newest project with the help of East Doc Platform 2025.
Zofia Kujawska (left), Zofia Sawicka (right)
Inner Landscapes overreaches something that all the other projects were about as well. The portrayal of specific political and societal problems in the other films all brought with themselves great feelings of hope, of love and of humanity shining through even very difficult situations. How was the concept for this film born?
Zofia Sawicka:
I was on a several month journey through Central Asia, travelling by trains as a passenger. I realised that this journey creates unique conditions for being with other people and with yourself. This journey gives time and space to look inside, to think about life, talk to each other and share hidden emotions. At that moment I was just terrified of what's going on in the world. And I think that this movie came to me as an answer for my feelings. I doubted there is a positive future for myself and the world, but my heroes gave me hope. It turned out that our train, as a metaphor for the whole world, is going to the light.
Zofia Kujawska:
My starting point for this film was anxiety as well. It resonated with me a lot, because I think we are a generation that asks questions about the future in a very different way. As if it's a generational experience to have a big question mark in front of us. This is a very uncomfortable state of being in our everyday life and so we are all searching for some kind of coping mechanisms. And this film is something that even by developing it is giving us a kind of heartwarming feeling. We believe that in the end what can be brought through this film is the idea that the potential of being a community as humans is still somewhere, still possible.
I don't really like when people say: ‘My story is relevant now more than ever.’ because I tend to ask: ‘Why?’. But in this case, I really feel like this film is coming from that very situation that we are in as people.
There are so many conflicts going on in the world, that wherever you are, you can be worried about a threat of war, climate change, extremisms, human rights violations. Whether it's the war in Gaza, Ukraine or wherever else, whether it is aggressive politics by big or small players, or temperature rising in your hometown - there are so many global events influencing all of us.
Zofia Sawicka:
Someone told me at East Doc Platform that this whole movie has a healing effect on them. This is something I see in my characters. For many of them, this journey turns out to be very important. Because they could finally share what is most important in their lives now. I really wanted to find something what could give the audience hope. I believe we need this kind of movies, where we can see that as humans we still have so much to do and are able to change many things.
Zofia Kujawska:
Also, I think what is important to say is that it's not this simple and perfect community just because it is located on one train. It's precisely the differences that are significant and that we want to show. We are all different as people. But what I think is the common ground here, is that people have this hardship with sharing their difficulties. As soon as they do share them, though, you feel like: ‘OK, I can connect with all of them because we all deal with this’.
This factor has the potential of creating a sense of something bigger, because we create this space for opening up.
How did your collaboration on this project start?
Zofia Kujawska:
Zosia came to us with the idea, that came from her personal trip, and we started to produce the project from very early development.
We had this point of reference that was very attractive to us. I personally really love Polish documentary cinema, and I really feel patriotic about it. So Maciej and I thought of two films from great Polish directors that would be our points of reference: ‘Anything can happen’ by Marcel Łoziński and ‘The Balcony Movie’ by Paweł Łoziński. Even if they are in a completely different setting, in a completely different cinematic style, there will be this, let's say, similar approach to humans.
Inner Landscapes (author's archive)
You already mentioned that you are filming your whole film on a train in Kazakhstan. How were these unusual filming conditions for you, shooting in a very small space and in a foreign country?
Zofia Sawicka:
Every day is a challenge inside a moving train. But we have a great DOP and sound engineer on board, and we luckily haven't had any big, unexpected difficulties. I feel like something is watching over us in some way. We met a lot of people who tried to help us as much as they can. I think this idea just opens their hearts in some way. Most of the people agree with the main idea of our movie. And during process I just decided to follow my characters and my intuition. I think film is always telling us what our next step should be. And what's crucial for me: it's our common journey with characters. Being together and sharing something between us. That’s the most important.
Zofia Kujawska:
It's funny to say that the biggest surprise is that everything is going so smoothly. A big challenge for every production, but especially documentaries, is to find the right people for the project. Especially if you're doing a film in a place that you don't have experience with. Zosia and the DOP already travelled through that region, but us producers, we didn't have any film shot there before. That meant that we were building from zero and we were so lucky that the first person who we contacted to help us production wise in Kazakhstan became our line producer. She understands what we need and is helpful and engaged and perfect for us. We also have a local Kazakh sound person whom we found as well. You can’t plan these kinds of human connections, but they all worked out for us.
Unlike Kubicki, who has been in the documentary film industry for some time, it was Sawicka’s and Kujawska’s first time attending the East Doc Platform. What was the experience like for the young filmmakers?
Zofia Sawicka:
Our movie is in editing stage right now, but before the final set of shooting. So it was the perfect moment for us to consult the project. It was also the first pitch of “Inner Landscapes". Every session helped us shape the film. Feedback gave us information on what moves people the most and which elements of the film make them feel that the story is also about them and which of our assumptions work.
Zofia Kujawska:
It was a test situation where we could see how it resonates. Is it something that people in the industry want to see on screen? What we found out is that people really fall in love with it. I rarely see this kind of reaction…
We obviously believed in it very strongly. But when you get this kind of confirmation, you feel like now it is clear that you are on the right path. We also discovered how many people are interested in co-producing it. I personally think that pretty much any country could be a contributor to the story because it's not someone's story. It's not a Polish story. It's not a Kazakh story. It is our aim to be as global as possible.
Inner Landscapes (author's archive)
Was there something surprising about the approach of the East Doc Platform?
Zofia Sawicka:
It was really beautiful experience, especially because of the atmosphere. During those five days I just felt that we created something between us, tutors and other filmmakers. It was a very valuable exchange on a creative and human level.
Zofia Kujawska:
We had these five days of preparation for the pitch, and it was a funny experience for us because we felt that there are thousands of ways of speaking about this project. A whole variety of options and people voting for so many contradictory ways to do it.
I personally was convinced that it will work out this way or another as I already had one small experience of sharing this project with the public. I showed the trailer at Emerging Producers at Ji.hlava IDFF and this already gave me a great insight about the feeling from the audience. They really fell in love with what they saw, it affected them emotionally so hard that they were coming to me after the pitch (that was about something completely different) to say that they really remembered the trailer of this film.
I therefore pretty much knew that the film speaks for itself, that the trailer makes the whole film work. But still it was very interesting for me to figure out how to phrase the idea that we have.
The audience’s reaction you describe seems to mirror the juries’ opinion, as you were awarded with the main award of the platform. What does it mean for your film and how will it influence further development?
Zofia Kujawska:
Well, I think it's an absolutely a great kick off for us, in the industry and internationally. It's a great sign that there is something worth attention coming. This is how I perceive it. And I can see that it is already resonating, that people already have this title in the back of their minds. I'm sure that it is a great step towards building a consciousness about this film. It's not an anonymous project from a first-time director, Zosia is recognized after this pitching. I think it's a very important step forward.
Zofia Sawicka:
For me the most important thing is feeling about being understood to be honest. I was scared at the beginning that I want to make my first full length movie in this way – not as a dramaturgically classical story, but something different. At first Zosia and Maciej helped me to believe in this idea. Then my whole team and characters. And after during whole East Doc Platform I was so grateful and uplifted. And main award and juries’ opinion... Oh, it was very, very strengthening for me. Very important.
Zofia Kujawska:
Something that personally for me was also great to see is that people are more and more open and ready to watch documentaries that are not purely observational or not classic. And this is what we love about this project as producers as well, that it's playing with a genre between documentary and fiction.
Well, we can see that the juries felt the same about such a transcending movie definitely having a place on the documentary scene. What were your feelings about receiving two awards at once?
Zofia Kujawska:
I personally wasn't thinking about the awards at all to be honest. I was already really happy to find out about the first award. I had to rush to the airport right after the first one was announced and I thought to myself: ‘Okay, that's great what we achieved here!’. And then I got the text about the second, even bigger award. What a great recognition, that this is the project that people think stands out so much.
Zofia Sawicka:
I was absolutely surprised. The other projects were amazing. I fell in love so many times with these projects during the East Doc Platform. So I was completely surprised. On the other hand, it was again a sign that people miss such stories.
Inner Landscapes (author's archive)
Sawicka, Kujawska and Kubicki now continue their journey attending DocsBarcelona 2025 and other intensive workshops and meetings. The crew is confident that the movie will keep resonating with their audience as much as it did until now and plan to start the second part of shooting soon. We’ll have to see which countries will end up co-producing the movie and how the upcoming events will shape its final form. However, with the support of the East Doc Platform Award and the DocsBarcelona Award, the young team has received a base on which they can support further development and hopefully fulfil their plans of telling this tender story of common humanity.