Richtung Nowa Huta

Nowa Huta, a ghostly industrial agglomeration near Krakow, was created in 1949 as a product of the industrial creationism of the Stalin era. Endless symmetric avenues, steel mills, power plants, and prefab housing estates. Today, only a fraction of the residents work in the mills, while the others live on the edge of poverty or have found a foothold in the post-privatization services sector. The spirit of Solidarity and industrial megalomania has long since disappeared, but its remnants continue to smolder. An up-to-date look at a genius loci made up of the city’s diverse social groups. Photogenic images of a place that has been transformed into a monumental stage set of ruin, with man in a secondary role. (Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival)