An animated scene from 'Among Neighbors' by Yoav Potash. The film has drawn the ire of the far right in Poland, where it is set. Courtesy of 8 Above Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment By all rights Among Neighbors should have been a run-of-the-mill documentary event. Yoav Potash's film - which explores a dark chapter of WWII - would normally be part of a reckoning that has been happening across Eastern Europe in recent years. The movie uses both animation and talking heads to examine the well-documented murder of hundreds of liberated Jews by local Poles at the end of the Holocaust, focusing on a few particular stories. But Poland remains under the sway of the hard right Law and Justice party and its allies. So when the broadcaster, TVP, aired the movie and made it available for streaming last month, it wasn't long before those politicians swung into action, with a high-ranking official in the office of president Karol Nawrocki saying that "a television station that has 'Polish' in its name should not have it on its airwaves" while others vowed to strip TVP of its license. Related Stories TV Hugh Laurie Stars in Season 3 of Apple's 'Tehran' as Spy Series Gets Renewed TV TV Under Trump: WNET Looks to Turn "Mortal Risk" Into Opportunity to Save Shows, Including With AI The controversy highlights how even rigorous historical inquiry has become charged in a world of right-wing populism and also gives more than a few echoes of Donald Trump's pursuit of non-right-wing media in the name of patriotism back in the U.S. The Polish equivalent of the FCC has even joined the fight to go after the broadcaster. And the incident underscores how, for all the supposed saturation of Holocaust stories, even historically necessary retellings from the period can now become disputed events. "It's sadly predictable," Potash tells The Hollywood Reporter. "My film is falling into an ongoing campaign that the far right in Poland has launched over the last decade to whitewash aspects of World War II. Any account where Poles are depicted as anything other than victims or heroes is anathema, a third rail and they flip out." While Poland's government has for the past two years been center-left under prime minister and former European Council president Donald Tusk, the ultra-conservative Law and Justice party still has significant backing, winning more seats than any other in the 2023 parliamentary election; this summer the Law and Justice-blessed right-wing candidate and fierce Tusk antagonist Nawrocki also won the majority of the vote to become the country's president and second-most powerful politician after Tusk. Potash spent years developing and shooting his movie, keying on the town of Gniewoszów, and two survivors in particular who have an unlikely connection, Pelagia Radecka and Yaakov Goldstein, who are both seen on-screen in modern-day interviews with Potash. To put the viewer in the minds of the protagonists (and re-create scenes he didn't have footage for), the SF-based filmmaker employed a dreamlike animation technique that holds its own with the likes of modern documentary classics such as Waltz with Bashir. The movie garnered early grassroots love, including at a word-of-mouth screening hosted a year ago by Nancy Spielberg. It would go on to premiere at the Santa Barbara Film Festival several months later and got a theatrical release in New York and Los Angeles this fall with additional financial help from USC's Shoah Foundation as well as the Jewish Story Council; it has also qualified for the Oscars. The movie will roll out in various cities for International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27. It was also received well in parts of the country in which it was set, with a strong screening at the Warsaw Jewish Film Festival last year and a later pickup by TVP. Yet Agnieszka Jedrzak, who serves as undersecretary to Nawrocki, posted on X after the premiere that the movie was "an anti-Polish historical manipulation," also offering the comment about a broadcaster with Polish in its name. Some 4,000 people have liked the post, which has been viewed more than 300,000 times. Meanwhile, Poland's National Broadcasting Council, a group akin to the FCC, is launching an investigation with TVP's license on the line. The agency's chairwoman, Agnieszka Glapiak, a right-wing leader with strong ties to Law and Justice, has launched an "explanatory proceeding" involving the film and sent a letter to TVP asking it to provide materials defending the choice. A TVP spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The broadcaster previously told the Polish site Wirtual Media that it would continue to air the film. The movie's goal "is to familiarize viewers with the complexity of Polish-Jewish relations, the positive and heroic epis