I was raised by three women – my grandmother, my mother and my older sister – and grew up on my grandmother’s stories about the 1960s in Poland. So, when I read the novel Only Lola by my friend Jarosław Kamiński, I was captivated by the story.
Only Lola is about love between two women during an oppressive time in our country. Lidia follows the norms of the communists while secretly yearning for her lost lover, Lola. Nina is unsure of herself and needs a mentor, a lover, who validates her. Our challenge in the film is to portray the multifaceted love story in the book, inspired by classical Polish cinema. To capture the uncertainty, recognition, tension, desire and betrayal.
We relate to these characters because we identify with Lidia’s inability to let go of a past love and Nina’s search for her place in the world. The end of the ‘60s in Poland is an extremely colourful period – with the flowering of culture and art; but also a period of persecution of which we should be ashamed.