Whilst translation services are typically used to translate documents from English to Polish and vice versa, other forms of Polish language media such as audio transcripts, radio broadcasts and films often require careful interpretation as well.
Poland has a rich cinematic tradition dating back to 1899 and the founding of the Living Pictures Theatre in Łódź. Władysław Starewicz would produce the first stop motion animation ever made, Beautiful Lukanida in 1910, and Poland has since been a centre of cinematic innovation.
Despite this long tradition and the international popularity of Polish cinema in Europe, one place where Poland’s film tradition would not be recognised is in the Academy Awards, which had a Best International Feature Film category for 16 years before nominating a Polish film.
It would take a further 51 years from this first nomination for Roman Polanski’s Knife In The Water for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to have a Polish language winner, although this winner would do much to evoke and celebrate Polish cinematic tradition.
Paweł Pawlikowski was born in Warsaw but lived in Germany and Great Britain for much of his early life, which particularly affected his filmmaking style that similarly centred around exiles and strangers in strange lands looking for a home in various interpretations of the idea.
Whilst Mr Pawikowski’s earlier films such as Last Resort and My Summer of Love were filmed in English and in the UK, Ida was filmed in Łódź and was inspired heavily by Mr Pawikowski’s early life in terms of its search for identity and truth.
It received critical acclaim and a surprising level of international crossover success, which helped to secure the first Academy Award for what was then Best Foreign Language Film in 2015.
It is, as of 2023, the only one of 54 submitted and 13 nominated to achieve this feat.