Green Border

In the treacherous and swampy forests that make up the so called “green border” between Belarus and Poland, refugees from the Middle East and Africa trying to reach the European Union are trapped in a geopolitical crisis cynically engineered by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko. In an attempt to provoke Europe, refugees are lured to the border by propaganda promising easy passage to the EU. Pawns in this hidden war, the lives of Julia, a newly minted activist who has given up her comfortable life, Jan, a young border guard, and a Syrian family intertwine.

Cast

Jalal Altawil

as Bashir

Maja Ostaszewska

as Julia

Behi Djanati Atai

as Leila

Tomasz Włosok

as Jan

Mohamad Al Rashi

as Grandfather

Dalia Naous

as Amina

Jaśmina Polak

as 'Żuku'

Monika Frajczyk

as Marta

Maciej Stuhr

as Bogdan

Agata Kulesza

as Basia

Reviews

CinemaSerf

This is the second film I've seen this week with Tomasz Wlosok. Earlier, he was in Julia von Heinz's tragic-comedy "Treasure" (2024) with a far lighter and fluffier role than he has here, as a Polish border guard. He is part of a team charged with repelling refugees trying to cross into the EU from ...

Brent Marchant

Escaping tyranny to find a better life is a process frequently riddled with challenges, frustrations and desperate measures. So, when refugees hear about an allegedly credible way to more easily escape their circumstances and make their way to freedom, they often enthusiastically jump at the chance ...

good.film

For audiences who see “refugee” as just a headline in a newspaper, GREEN BORDER changes everything. It's an urgent, extraordinary film that spears your heart like an arrow. Winner of seven separate prizes at the Venice Film Festival, Green Border recognises that, to put it bluntly, the refugee cr...

Similar Movies

Free Zone

Rebecca, an American who has been living in Jerusalem for a few months now, has just broken off her engagement. She gets into a cab driven by Hanna, an Israeli. But Hanna is on her way to Jordan, to the Free Zone, to pick up a large sum of money.

⭐ 5.5

The Day After

In the mid-1980s, the U.S. is poised on the brink of nuclear war. This shadow looms over the residents of a small town in Kansas as they continue their daily lives. Dr. Russell Oakes maintains his busy schedule at the hospital, Denise Dahlberg prepares for her upcoming wedding, and Stephen Klein is deep in his graduate studies. When the unthinkable happens and the bombs come down, the town's residents are thrust into the horrors of nuclear winter.

⭐ 6.8

Night Shapes

The Pope is in town and the night of his stay is anything but heavenly for some of Berlin′s inhabitants. Rich and poor, down-and-outs and policemen, street kids and taxi drivers - in their search for a little bit of happiness, they all end up on an amusing and at times harrowing odyssey through the labyrinth of the big city.

⭐ 6.5

Gaza is a 14-year-old boy who lives on the Aegean coast of Turkey. Together with his domineering father, he helps smuggle refugees from war-torn countries to Europe, giving them temporary lodgings and scant food until they attempt the crossing. Gaza dreams of escaping this life, but can't help being drawn into a dark world of immorality, exploitation and human suffering. Can you avoid becoming a monster when you've been raised by one? Onur Saylak's debut feature, adapted from the award-winning novel of the same title by Hakan Günday, one of the first novels to document the refugee crisis in Europe, "More" is the gripping story of a boy that gets to grow up in a world where there's no room for innocence.

⭐ 7.3

God Does Not Believe in Us Anymore

After his father is murdered by the Nazis in 1938, a young Viennese Jew named Ferry Tobler flees to Prague, where he joins forces with another expatriate and a sympathetic Czech relief worker. Together with other Jewish refugees, the three make their way to Paris, and, after spending time in a French prison camp, eventually escape to Marseille, from where they hope to sail to a safe port.

⭐ 7.0

Sounds of Sand

On the one hand, there’s the desert eating away at the land. The endless dry season, the lack of water. On the other there’s the threat of war. The village well has run dry. The livestock is dying. Trusting their instinct, most of the villagers leave and head south. Rahne, the only literate one, decides to head east with his three children and Mouna, his wife. A few sheep, some goats, and Chamelle, a dromedary, are their only riches. A tale of exodus, quest, hope and fatality.

⭐ 6.1

Sunday Drivers

On August 12, 1961, eight people in three cars set off for Berlin from Leipzig. They want to go to the West. The initiator is the philistine Spiessack, who drives the others, who have embarked on the adventure with mixed feelings. It becomes a journey with numerous incidents and panic, which causes the different characters to clash. When they finally arrive in Berlin the next day, they are not allowed to cross the border. The only option is to return. At home, Spiessack is met by a policeman in his living room - with the slogan "We'll be back" written on the wall.

⭐ 5.7

The House by the Sea

By a little bay near Marseille lies a picturesque villa owned by an old man. His three children have gathered by his side for his last days. It’s time for them to weigh up what they have inherited of their father’s ideals and the community spirit he created in this magical place. The arrival, at a nearby cove, of a group of boat people will throw these moments of reflection into turmoil.

⭐ 6.5

Silent Night

Fact-based World War II story set on Christmas Eve, 1944, finds a German Mother and her son seeking refuge in a cabin on the war front. When she is invaded by three American soldiers and then three German soldiers, she successfully convinces the soldiers to put aside their differences for one evening and share a Christmas dinner.

⭐ 5.8

The New Country

A 15-year-old Somalian boy meets a 40-year-old Iranian man in a refugee camp in Skåne, in the south of Sweden. With the threat of deportation hanging over them, they decide to take their faiths in their own hands and together they go on a journey in the Swedish summer.

⭐ 6.5

Night Bus

A group of civilians share a bus ride to Sampar, a town full of natural resources. It is heavily guarded by the state army who is fighting against the rebel militias, who want freedom over their homeland.

⭐ 0.0

Highly Explosive

In the center of Hamburg, the discovery of an unexploded bomb from the Second World War not only leads to a far-reaching evacuation, but also to an interpersonal state of emergency.

⭐ 7.0

Hägring

July 1972 in Iran. Mohammed is arrested for illegal spreading of flyers. He is put in jail and tortured. After one year he is released and flees to Sweden. He arrives at a refugee camp where he is taught Swedish. He is surrounded by people without hope.

⭐ 0.0

The Border

A corrupted border agent decides to clean up his act when an impoverished woman's baby is put up for sale on the black market.

⭐ 6.1

Saffron Kingdom

After her husband is abducted in Kashmir, a traumatised woman flees to the United States with her young son to rebuild their lives.

⭐ 0.0

Lucky Miles

It's 1990 and an Indonesian fishing boat abandons Iraqi and Cambodian refugees in a remote part of the Western Australia. Although most are quickly caught by officials, three men with nothing in common but their misfortune and determination to escape arrest, begin an epic journey into the heart of Australia.

⭐ 5.8

Newspaper News

A woman reads the newspaper with such intensity that she gets literally devoured by it. Painted on its pages she witnesses some of the tragic events of our times, drowns in ocean trash and is threatened by the elements unleashed by climate change. Yet in her despair she transforms this darkness into movement and art, so she plants the seeds of hope.

⭐ 0.0

Two Women

A young widow flees from Rome during WWII and takes her lonely twelve-year-old-daughter to her rural hometown but the horrors of war soon catch up with them.

⭐ 7.8

Curveball

Although he already has searched Iraq unsuccessfully for weapons of mass destruction as a member of a UN mission, German bio-weapons expert Arndt Wolf is still obsessed with the idea that Saddam Hussein is hiding something. Nobody around him is interested in this topic any more. This changes abruptly when an Iraqi asylum seeker claims to have been involved in the manufacture of chemical weapons. The German Federal Intelligence Service summons Dr. Wolf to ascertain the legitimacy of the claims made by the informant, who has been given the code name “Curveball”.

⭐ 7.2

What It All Could Be

Hum lives in a refugee camp near Hamburg. He loves films and finances his visits to the cinema by selling lost properties from cinema visits in the refugee camp. One day he meets Anna and her friend Ida. At a dinner together in the shared flat of the two, they find out that they all share a love of music. Anna and Ida can sing great together and Hum shares the contact with his friends who play in a band. A timid and touching love story develops between Hum and Anna. Both are looking forward to the first performance of the band, in which Anna now sings. But shortly before the performance, Hum is to be deported. Neither his love for Anna and music nor his imagination can save him from the everyday life of a refugee.

⭐ 10.0