Paweł Pawlikowski’s Ida (2014) won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and established Pawlikowski as one of contemporary cinema’s master directors. The film’s achievement goes beyond its own considerable artistry—it represents a broader renaissance of Polish cinema on the world stage and the culmination of traditions established by earlier Polish masters. For travelers interested in understanding modern Poland and its artistic culture, Ida offers an essential entry point into both Polish cinema and the nation’s ongoing relationship with its complex 20th-century history.
Unlike Holocaust-focused films that confront Poland’s darkest chapter directly, Ida approaches historical trauma obliquely, through the story of a young nun who discovers her identity as a Jewish child hidden during World War II. The film’s spare black-and-white cinematography and contemplative pacing create an atmosphere of mystery and moral questioning rather than explicit documentation. Pawlikowski trusts viewers to sit with ambiguity and draw their own conclusions—a distinctly artistic approach that reflects the sophistication of contemporary Polish cinema.
The film was shot in numerous Polish locations—convents, small towns, urban streets, and countryside landscapes—creating a diverse geography of Polish pilgrimage sites. Visiting these locations means engaging with Polish film culture, understanding the nation’s cinematographic traditions, and exploring the landscapes that shaped both Pawlikowski’s artistic vision and Poland’s historical experience.
Polish Monasteries and Convents: The Sacred Spaces
Ida opens in a convent, where the protagonist Ida (a novice nun) learns that her secular name was Idek and that she was Jewish. The film’s spare visual aesthetic—emphasizing architectural geometry, silence, and spiritual contemplation—uses convent and monastery spaces as fundamental to its meaning-making.
Several Polish convents and monasteries appear in or inspired the film. While Pawlikowski doesn’t identify specific locations in the public record, the architectural style and aesthetic match convents found throughout Poland, particularly in the Lesser Poland (Małopolska) region.
The Jasna Góra Monastery in Częstochowa, one of Poland’s most important pilgrimage sites, represents the kind of sacred space that Ida celebrates. While not necessarily a filming location, visiting Jasna Góra provides context for understanding Polish Catholic spirituality and the nation’s relationship with religious faith. The monastery houses the Black Madonna icon, one of Christendom’s most venerated images, and attracts millions of pilgrims annually.
The Benedictine Abbey in Kraków (Benedyktynki), though not confirmed as a Ida filming location, represents the kind of contemplative monastic community that the film depicts. The sisters’ daily rhythms—prayer, work, silence—create the spiritual atmosphere that Ida captures.
Visiting Convents and Monasteries: If you’re traveling to visit Ida locations, consider contacting convents and monasteries in advance to arrange visits. Many Polish convents welcome respectful visitors, particularly those genuinely interested in monastic life. However, remember that these are functioning religious communities, not museums. Visits typically require respectful behavior: modest dress, silence during prayer times, and genuine respect for the residents’ spiritual commitments.
The film’s meditation on faith, identity, and moral responsibility is deepened by actually visiting these spaces—experiencing their silence, their architectural beauty, and their profound spiritual dedication.
Small-Town Poland: The Postwar Landscape
Much of Ida unfolds in small Polish towns, where the narrative explores postwar Poland’s social fabric. The film presents villages and provincial towns not as backward or provincial but as places where moral questions play out in intimate, human dimensions.
The sparse black-and-white cinematography captures these towns’ architecture, streets, and landscapes with profound beauty. Pawlikowski emphasizes geometric composition, negative space, and light—creating visual poetry from seemingly ordinary Polish townscapes.
The Specific Locations: While Pawlikowski hasn’t publicly identified exact town names for filming (possibly to protect the communities’ privacy and avoid turning them into explicit tourist destinations), the aesthetic suggests locations in Małopolska (Lesser Poland) or similar regions. Towns featuring wooden architecture, central squares, and the kind of postwar rebuilding visible throughout Poland would match the film’s visual language.
Traveling Through Small-Town Poland: Rather than visiting specific confirmed locations, engaging with Ida‘s spirit means traveling through Poland’s small towns and villages. Rent a car and drive through the countryside, particularly in regions like Małopolska, Silesia, or Greater Poland. Stop in market squares, visit local cafes, observe the architecture and streetscapes. This experience replicates the film’s aesthetic engagement with Polish rural and provincial life.
Towns worth visiting for their visual and historical interest include:
Kazimierz Dolny (on the Vistula River) preserves prewar Renaissance and baroque architecture and has long been a destination for Polish artists and intellectuals. The town’s artistic heritage and preserved architecture create an atmosphere aligned with Ida‘s visual sensibility.
Nowy Sącz in southern Małopolska offers authentic small-town Poland with preserved medieval layout and contemporary artistic engagement. The town serves as a model for understanding how small Polish communities have rebuilt and sustained themselves post-war.
Tarnów provides another example of a provincial Polish town with significant Jewish history (which relates to Ida‘s themes of hidden Jewish identity) and postwar reconstruction visible in its mixed architectural periods.
Łódź: The Heart of Polish Cinema
To understand Ida and modern Polish cinema more broadly, visiting Łódź is essential. Poland’s legendary film school, the Państwowa Wyższa Szkoła Filmowa, Telewizyjna i Teatralna im. Leona Schillera w Łodzi (often abbreviated as PJAIT or Film School Łódź), is where Paweł Pawlikowski trained. The school has produced virtually every significant Polish filmmaker of the last sixty years and remains one of Europe’s most prestigious film institutions.
The Cinematography Museum (Muzeum Sztuki Filmowej) in Łódź houses extensive collections documenting Polish cinema history, equipment, costumes, and memorabilia. The museum provides invaluable context for understanding the cinematographic traditions that Pawlikowski inherited and continues.
Visiting the film school’s campus (campus tours may be available with advance notice) and the museum creates a deeper understanding of Pawlikowski’s artistic formation and Poland’s broader cinematic excellence.
Łódź’s Urban Landscape: Beyond film-specific sites, Łódź itself has become a destination for visitors interested in industrial heritage and artistic revitalization. Once Poland’s second-largest city and a center of textile manufacturing, Łódź has transformed into a creative hub. Contemporary artists, galleries, and cultural institutions have repurposed former industrial buildings. This urban transformation mirrors themes in Polish cinema about rebuilding identity and reimagining purpose.
Visiting Information: Łódź is approximately 120 kilometers southwest of Warsaw (roughly two hours by train). The film school offers some tours for interested visitors. The Cinematography Museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 AM to 6 PM. Allow at least two to three hours for a thorough visit. Accommodation and restaurants are widely available, with contemporary hotels and restaurants opening throughout the city.
The Polish Cinema Tradition: Understanding Pawlikowski’s Lineage
Ida doesn’t exist in isolation. To truly appreciate Pawlikowski’s achievement and the significance of contemporary Polish cinema, understanding the tradition he inherits is essential. Polish cinema has produced some of world cinema’s greatest directors, and their work remains accessible through various means:
Andrzej Wajda (1926-2014) was Poland’s most internationally celebrated filmmaker. Films like Ashes and Diamonds, Kanal, and Man of Iron grappled directly with Poland’s wartime trauma and Cold War experience. Wajda created a model for how cinema could address difficult national history with artistic sophistication. Visiting Wajda’s hometown of Suwalki or exploring Warsaw’s sites depicted in his films creates connection to this legacy.
Krzysztof Kieślowski (1941-1996) created meditative, philosophical films exploring fate, morality, and human connection. His Three Colors trilogy and The Ten Commandments series explored moral philosophy through intimate human stories. The contemplative, questioning tone of Ida owes much to Kieślowski’s influence.
Jerzy Hoffman created epic historical dramas like The Deluge and With Fire and Sword, exploring Polish-Lithuanian history and cultural identity. His work demonstrates cinema’s capacity to engage with national mythology and historical grandeur.
Andrzej Holland continued this tradition with films like Europa Europa and A Woman’s Life, exploring identity, displacement, and historical trauma with artistic nuance.
Understanding this tradition—that Polish cinema has long engaged with difficult history and moral complexity—helps you appreciate why Ida, despite its contemporary style, fits within a recognizable Polish artistic lineage.
Engaging with the Tradition: Before or after visiting Poland, watch films by these directors. Starting with Wajda or Kieślowski provides essential context. Polish cinema became internationally recognized precisely because it addressed profound historical and moral questions with artistic sophistication rather than propagandistic simplicity.
Warsaw’s Relationship with Polish Cinema
While Ida isn’t primarily set in Warsaw, the capital remains central to Polish film culture. The National Film Archive (Filmoteka Narodowa) in Warsaw houses historical films, documentaries, and contemporary work. The archive presents regular screenings, exhibitions, and educational programs.
The Cinematheque screening venues throughout Warsaw regularly show contemporary and classic Polish films with subtitles. Attending a screening in Warsaw connects you directly to Polish film culture as it’s currently practiced rather than as historical artifact.
Film Festivals: Warsaw hosts several important film festivals, including the New Horizons International Film Festival (Międzynarodowy Festiwal Filmowy Nowe Horyzonty), which showcases contemporary world cinema. These festivals attract filmmakers, critics, and enthusiasts and create vibrant opportunities for engaging with Polish and international film culture.
The Broader Significance: Memory, Identity, and Artistic Resistance
What makes Ida and the broader tradition of Polish cinema significant isn’t just aesthetic achievement but the way these films engage with historical trauma and national identity. Polish cinema, emerging from a nation that experienced catastrophic 20th-century history—occupation, genocide, domination—developed traditions of grappling honestly and artistically with difficult subject matter.
Ida represents contemporary Polish cinema’s maturity: able to address Holocaust legacy, postwar reconstruction, and persistent questions about identity not through explicit documentation (like Schindler’s List) or epic historical narrative (like Wajda’s work) but through contemplative, sparse artistic vision that trusts audiences’ intelligence and moral engagement.
Visiting Poland with awareness of this cinematic tradition means understanding the nation not just as a historical site but as a creative force that has produced extraordinary artistic responses to historical complexity.
Practical Visiting Information
When to Visit: Spring (April-May) and autumn (September-October) offer pleasant weather and atmospheric conditions that align with Ida‘s visual aesthetic. The film’s black-and-white cinematography can actually be more striking during overcast, gray weather—creating visual continuity with the film’s mood.
Getting Around: Poland has excellent public transportation. Trains connect major cities efficiently. For exploring small towns and countryside, renting a car provides flexibility. Road conditions are generally good, and driving offers opportunities to experience the Polish landscape that inspired Ida‘s visual style.
Time Required: Allow at least one week to meaningfully engage with Ida locations and Polish cinema culture. This might include two days exploring Warsaw and the National Film Archive, one to two days in Łódź visiting the Film School and Cinematography Museum, and several days traveling through small towns and countryside. If possible, extend to two weeks to include monastery visits and deeper immersion in provincial Poland.
Accommodation: Poland has accommodations at all price levels. Staying in smaller towns occasionally (rather than only major cities) provides authentic experience with provincial Polish life. Many convents offer modest guest accommodations for visitors interested in spiritual retreat.
Language: While English is increasingly spoken in major cities and among younger people, learning basic Polish phrases shows respect. In small towns particularly, English may be less common. Translation apps and patience facilitate communication.
Film Resources: Before traveling, access Ida and other Polish films through streaming services or DVD. The Criterion Collection has released several Wajda and Kieślowski films with excellent supplementary materials. Reading about Polish cinema history before traveling enriches your understanding.
Beyond Tourism: Engaging Thoughtfully with Polish Cinema
Visiting Ida locations and Polish cinema sites isn’t primarily about tourism or entertainment—it’s about engaging thoughtfully with how art processes historical trauma and national identity. Poland’s cinema tradition emerged from a nation that experienced profound 20th-century tragedy and chose not merely to survive but to create beauty and meaning from that survival.
The sparse, meditative quality of Ida—the film’s trust in silence, empty space, and ambiguity—represents a mature artistic response to historical complexity. Rather than demanding clear answers, the film invites moral questioning and contemplation.
Conclusion: Cinema as National Expression
Ida and the broader tradition of Polish cinema represent one of world cinema’s great achievements. These films emerged not from a nation at the cultural center of global power but from a nation that experienced occupation, destruction, and domination—yet responded with artistic sophistication and moral seriousness.
Visiting Poland with awareness of this cinematic tradition means understanding the nation as a creative force, not merely a historical site. You’re engaging with a living, evolving film culture that continues to produce important work—Pawlikowski himself continues directing, and younger Polish filmmakers build on the traditions established by Wajda, Kieślowski, and Holland.
Walking through Polish monastery courtyards, visiting the Film School in Łódź, exploring small towns’ streets, and discussing Polish cinema with locals all contribute to understanding how a nation processes historical trauma through artistic creation. This engagement transcends typical tourism—it becomes genuine cultural participation.
Poland’s cinema invites you not to consume spectacle but to contemplate complexity, to sit with ambiguity, to recognize that art’s power lies not in providing easy answers but in asking honest questions about identity, morality, faith, and human connection.
When you visit Ida locations, you’re participating in this tradition—engaging with art that transforms suffering into meaning and destruction into creativity.
Recommended Resources
- Films: Ida (2014), Ashes and Diamonds (Wajda, 1958), Three Colors trilogy (Kieślowski, 1993-1994), Europa Europa (Holland, 1990)
- Books: “The Oxford History of World Cinema” (David Cook) includes excellent chapter on Polish cinema; “Andrzej Wajda: A Life” (Aleksander Fiut) for biographical context
- Documentary: Various documentaries about Polish cinema and Paweł Pawlikowski available through film archives and streaming services
- In Poland: Attend screenings at the National Film Archive or Cinematheque venues; visit film festivals if timing permits
- Film School: Contact Łódź Film School in advance to arrange campus visits; participate in educational programs if available
- Online: Polish Film Institute maintains resources and promotes contemporary Polish cinema internationally
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