CHARACTERS
EWA
A 38-year-old acclaimed fashion photographer, weary of the world she helped create. She works for well-known brands and prestigious magazines, while in the darkroom she develops something entirely different: analogue portraits of women suspended between one moment and the next. She controls everything: the set, the people, herself. She seduces, steals and apologises for nothing.
Her younger sister Maria was killed when Ewa was eighteen, and the killers have never been found. Ewa is certain she could have saved her. Maria is not a memory – she is someone who simply lives alongside her. Ewa turns this experience into an image, because an image is safer. It is why she can photograph a dead woman but cannot mourn her own sister. Her first attempt to face this came at the Academy of Fine Arts, staging scenes at crime sites. It ended in drugs, depression and an unfinished degree. Twenty years on, she returns to the project, determined to close it at last. With Natasza, for the first time in years, she puts down the camera and tells the truth about herself. She does not stop using her in the process.
NATASZA
A 21-year-old Ukrainian woman from Mariupol. The Russians killed her parents in 2022. She arrived in Warsaw through Kyiv, where for several months she has been sleeping in a flat shared with strangers and taking casual jobs. She has nowhere to return to: her city remains in Russian hands.
Before the war she wanted to act – to audition for drama school and play invented lives. The war cast her in a different role: a refugee. Now Ewa pays her for the next one – playing dead women. Natasza always carries the analogue camera her father gave her for her birthday, the only thing left to her from her parents, and she photographs whatever makes her stop. She holds a rage that frightens her and a tenderness she has no one to give to. She is not easily talked into Ewa’s project: she refuses twice, because she fled violence and will not walk back into it. She agrees only for the money.
But she is not merely the object of someone else's gaze. She knows her worth, discovers her own artistic instinct in herself and finally turns the camera on Ewa. She also discovers her own sexuality, becoming close to a woman for the first time. And at the factory, she is the one who does something from which there is no turning back.
PAWEŁ
A 48-year-old homicide detective and Ewa's former husband. He led the case of Maria, his former wife's sister, who was murdered twenty years ago, but never solved it. It is the burden that brought them together and drove them apart. Paweł loved Ewa and is convinced that if he had caught the murderer then, they would still be together. When he learns that his former wife stole classified files from his computer, he sets off after Ewa and Natasza to save his career.
HANS
A 52-year-old acclaimed art curator from Berlin. He is opening his third gallery, where he wants to show bold photography. His assistant persuades him to give Ewa a chance to show her work at the opening. Hans has succeeded because he can connect the world of artists with that of collectors. He takes a very businesslike approach, is demanding and critical. He has an excellent eye for authenticity and demands it ruthlessly.
JAN
A 68-year-old professor of photography at the Academy of Fine Arts. During Ewa's studies, he recognised her exceptional talent and gave her great support. He knew about her loss and encouraged her to work through it with art, turning pain into creative work. Jan remains close to Ewa. Years later, he encourages her to return to the project she was unable to complete at art school.
ANDRIEJ
A 29-year-old Russian-speaking man. Lonely, a heavy drinker, raised on propaganda he believes to the letter: to him the war is a misunderstanding and Russia a country that was wronged. They recruited him because he is a cheap tool – his job is to blow up the tracks carrying aid to Ukraine. Not an agent but an amateur who wants to be a hero. He wants to finally get married. Natasza catches his eye at once. He dies by accident, from a single push.
MARIA
Ewa's murdered younger sister. She was killed at sixteen in the family summer house, which she and Ewa treated as a secret place for teenage parties. Her murderer was never found. In the film, Maria returns as a ghost, not as a threat but as a presence. She is not a memory: she is longing, guilt and love in one. Natasza bears an uncanny resemblance to her. The symbolic farewell between Ewa and Maria does not mean the protagonist is healed. What leaves her is not grief but the need to keep Maria inside the frame.
