A lonely man limps down the road. A truck drives up to him. Several armed men jump out of it. They capture the limping man and transport him to the forest. The only witnesses of the scene are people from a nearby village. Since 2021, situations like these are commonplace on the Polish-Belarussian border of the EU, which is the scene of an ongoing refugee crisis. An animated documentary whose creator happens to live in a town by the border.
Szymon Ruczynski was born in Hajnowka, Poland, in 2000. Currently a student of an Animated Film and Special Effect department at the Polish National Film School in Lodz. He grew up in Bialowieza, a village in the centre of the ancient Bialowieza Forest which is the source of inspiration for his award-winning films Reason and The Wildwood Diptych. In 2021 and 2022 Szymon participated in bringing humanitarian aid to the refugees hiding in the forest. He uses mixed animation techniques to tell stories about socially relevant problems he witnesses.
