29/06/2023 - The Polish director zooms in on small-town life as her newest short gets set to world-premiere as part of EFP’s Future Frames at Karlovy Vary

Small-town life has been a fertile ground for cinematic exploration, with Stuck Together bringing a unique view on the genre as it follows three girls on a seemingly ordinary day in their lives. But amidst the general ennui of small-town living, the complex dynamics of friendship, the offer (and denial) of hope and a shocking act of violence will change the direction of our protagonists’ lives forever.

Director Anna Wowra concocts a complicated mix of female friendship, coming of age and societal inequality, and filters it through the hazy lens of summertime malaise in a film that is both tender and tense. We talked to the Polish-born Wowra – who currently lives in Prague and is studying at FAMU – as her short prepares to unspool in front of audiences for the first time as part of EFP’s Future Frames at Karlovy Vary.

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Cineuropa: What was it that made you want to tell this story?
Anna Wowra: I grew up in a small, working-class town, where the overwhelming feeling of being limited and lacking prospects was ubiquitous. As a teenager, I experienced verbal bullying on several occasions, and also observed frequent violence and crossing of physical boundaries by peers, which was not shocking within the set dynamics of friendship.

In 2019, I read an article about two girlfriends who murdered and disfigured another friend just because (as they claimed) she was more attractive than them. I was stunned that something like this could happen. I was touched by the unimaginable cruelty and sense of hopelessness that created a need for "justice" for those girls.

That story stayed with me for a really long time and began to resonate, echoing my own memories. I was wondering under what conditions girls would have to grow up, and what emotions they'd have to grapple with every day, to be able to get to a point where they'd kill their own friend.

Was there ever any intent to play with notions of femininity?
What I cared about the most was creating multi-layered characters that would reflect the complexity of being a woman and a teenager, and learning how to navigate young womanhood. That kind of really close friendship and solidarity, which we have in our film, can cause a clash and turn into violence – I’d read a lot about it, as there are quite a few similar stories. Also, I consulted psychologists about it.

For me, the most important moment was when verbal and latent aggression turns into a concrete act of violence. The core of the film is the depiction of emotions and the transformation of years of accumulated frustration into evil. I wanted to show how the inability to ventilate emotions and the absence of honest dialogue can cross all boundaries and destroy basically everything that those girls have.

How did you find the right three leads? It must have been very important to find people with just the right chemistry.
Yes, it was, and it was also quite a challenge. From the very beginning, we knew the film would be based on acting and the story would be credible only if the dynamics among the characters were natural and didn’t feel forced.

We had been doing castings during COVID-19, so we had time, and we were also able to invite girls from all over the country. I'd say that was an advantage, but on the other hand, we couldn’t meet the girls personally, so we weren’t able to “check” the chemistry.

I think we spoke with approximately 100 girls, and it took us almost four months to find the trio. When those three girls met at the last call, we knew they were our characters. They talked so freely and laughed so hard that there was no doubt.

What other projects do you have in the pipeline?
Currently, I’m working on my feature debut, In Good Faith. Again, I’m focusing on the dynamics between women, but this time, it’s dealing with abortion crackdowns in Poland, which is devastating to me as a woman, but also as a Pole.

The story is inspired by women and girls I've met who were desperate to get a termination by any means necessary, even if it involved putting their lives at risk. In Good Faith is a cross-genre project combining elements of a social-problem film and a coming-of-age flick about unplanned pregnancy, based on recent events in Poland.