‘I just wanted to get away.’
In 1981, Poland was in the throes of a years-long economic recession, with grocery shelves empty and thousands of residents attempting to flee west. By December that year, the country would descend into martial law. Set against the backdrop of this fraught moment, the award-winning short animation The Car That Came Back from the Sea captures a group of young friends intent on taking a joyously aimless road trip to the country’s Baltic coast in a small, overcrowded car.
The Swiss Polish filmmaker Jadwiga Kowalska based the work on interviews conducted with those who took the trip, including her mother, and her distinctive animated visuals place expressive characters in a stark black-and-white world. Through these elements, she creates a reflection on youth, camaraderie and freedom that is at once deeply enmeshed in its time and place, yet in many ways universal.
