Pawel Pawlikowski’s return to his native Poland has resulted in one of his most powerful films, in which a single human story becomes the key to addressing defining moments in the country’s past. In the 1960s, novitiate nun Anna is about to take her vows in the Catholic Church when the Mother Superior insists that she must visit her aunt. Middle-aged Wanda informs Anna that her real name is Ida. It is the first in a chain of revelations about the family that also illuminate the dark shadows of the war and the relationship between the country’s Catholic and Jewish populations. Beautifully composed in black and white, Ida is a masterful evocation of intimate dilemmas and the weight of history.

Scottish premiere.