By Maria Esteves – February 1, 2014
The 23rd New York Jewish Film Festival 2014 (NYJFF 2014) Closing Night New York Premiere of IDA, directed by Pawel Pawlikowski commenced Thursday, January 23, at the Walter Reade Theater in Lincoln Center. A special Q&A session immediately followed with director Pawlikowski moderated by director of cinematheque programming, Dennis Lim, Film Society of Lincoln Center.

IDA is a provocative and superb coming of age film set in Poland in the 1960s about Sister Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), a Polish Jewish orphan named Ida Lebenstein raised in a monastery of nuns who knew no other life than that of becoming a nun. At age 18, before taking her vows, mother superior revealed her only family relative aunt Wanda Gruz (Agata Kulesza), a communist prosecutor and told her that she must visit and stay with Wanda as long as she needed. Ida’s spiritual journey begins as family secrecy unfolds, the search to find her missing parents Roza and Heim and the discovery of an ordinary life in the secular world.

IDA, directed Pawel Pawlikowski | Opus Film | Poland | 2013 | Drama | Black and White | Polish with English subtitles | 80 min, 2014 Closing Night New York Premiere: 23rd New York Jewish Film Festival. In Theaters May 2014 View Trailer