In partnership with the Embassy of Poland, Polish filmmaker Marcin Modzelewski’s short film Lift Lady had its North American premiere at the DC/DOX Film Festival, along with four other short films in a collection entitled: “Or Forever Hold Your Peace.”
Lift Lady follows Mzia, a woman who maintains a coin-operated elevator in post-Soviet Tbilisi, Georgia. The elevator leads to a sky bridge that connects an entire block of apartment buildings, making it a crucial aspect of life for the community it serves. Despite its significance to these people, the elevator is an often-malfunctioning relic of the Soviet era, and problems arise for Mzia and the community when the lift breaks down.
At just under 25 minutes running time, Lift Lady is an evocative film that tells the story not just of one elevator, but of a woman’s life, a community, a country, and its history.
In his comments after the screening, Modzelewski said he saw the telling of Mzia’s story as a way to demonstrate the larger cultural context of Georgian society.
“We really wanted to portray Georgian society and the changes which were happening, and which are happening right now, in a society,” said Modzelewski during a Q&A session after the screening. “But making a film [so] wide, talking about [a] whole country, [a] whole nation is not really easy and it’s not really possible. So we wanted to extrapolate the characteristics of society and the way of thinking into something smaller. When I realized that we can manage it, to show the changes and show the things which are happening in Georgia as they are happening in a building, in this complex, we just followed through.”
Mzia’s struggles to maintain an elevator and way of life from a bygone era encapsulate the evolving nature of Georgia and Eastern Europe as a whole—both progressing into the modern age while keeping firm, proud roots in the past.
Katarzyna Rybka-Iwańska, Head of Communications and Public Diplomacy at the Embassy of Poland in Washington, D.C., delivered opening remarks prior to the screening. She emphasized Poland’s rich history of producing visionary filmmakers such as Andrzej Fidyk, Krzysztof Kieślowski, and Roman Polanski. Particularly, she pointed to the strong Polish documentarian community.
“The Polish documentary tradition is rich and globally respected. Polish documentarians have received top honors at Cannes, IDFA, Sundance, Berlinale, and other major film festivals. Some of the most powerful contributions have come in the form of geopolitical storytelling. Consider Andrzej Fidyk’s Yodok Stories, a political documentary about North Korean defectors living in South Korea as they create musical stage plays based on their harrowing experiences in the infamous Yodok concentration camp. Or Ewa Ewart’s Who is Putin?, a chillingly prescient film that revealed, long before the global consensus had caught up, the true nature of Vladimir Putin’s regime. These are documentaries that not only inform but also warn, and demand attention from the international community.”
She noted that several of these talented creatives graduated from the Polish Łódź Film School, Modzelewski’s alma mater.
“The Łódź Film School is not only a symbol of cinematic excellence in Poland, but also a global creative powerhouse. It has long been recognized for combining rigorous artistic education with a strong emphasis on ethical storytelling and visual experimentation— qualities that continue to define the next generation of Polish filmmakers, including Marcin himself.”
Finally, she emphasized the success that Lift Lady has already seen within the film community prior to its North American premiere, stating: “The film has already made waves internationally, winning the audience award at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Film Festival, and receiving special recognition at Poland’s renowned Docs Against Gravity.”
The DC/DOX Film Festival brings documentarians and film enthusiasts together in the nation’s capital to celebrate the latest achievements in documentary filmmaking from around the world. The event occurs each year in D.C. over four days in June.