In Touch

The Polish village of Stare Juchy has been pulled apart. A third of the population left to work in Iceland, and those who stayed behind—most of them from the older generation—are hoping for their return. But by now their children and grandchildren are settling into new lives on the other side of Europe. The distance separating them is great and the journey expensive, so they don’t get to hug each other very often. The best alternative is intensive contact by Skype.

Pawel Ziemilski brings together these fractured families—if only visually—using inventive projection and montage techniques to suggest physical contact. While one part of a family sits down to eat their evening meal in Poland, the other part in Iceland does the same, and the video images of them at the table are projected on the wall. Scenes of intimate conversations between a separated mother and daughter or a grandfather’s heartwarming lullaby for his granddaughter are projected on backgrounds that have particular value and meaning for everyone involved: the childhood home, the community center, a touch of nature, a hand. The result is an intimate and creative film about a universal new reality, and eternal feelings such as homesickness and familial love.