Virtual Friday Night Films at the Wende: Ida

From the director of the 2018 film Cold War, Ida is a moving and intimate drama about a young novitiate nun in 1960’s Poland who, on the verge of taking her vows, makes a shocking discovery about her past.

18-year old Anna, a sheltered orphan raised in a convent, is preparing to become a nun when the Mother Superior insists she first visit her sole living relative. Naive, innocent Anna soon finds herself in the presence of her aunt Wanda, a worldly and cynical Communist Party insider, who shocks her with the declaration that her real name is Ida and her Jewish parents were murdered during the Nazi occupation. This revelation triggers a heart-wrenching journey into the countryside, to the family house, and into the secrets of the repressed past, evoking the haunting legacy of the Holocaust and the realities of postwar Communism. The winner of Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards in 2015 as well as a BAFTA award for Best Film Not in the English Language; Nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Golden Globes, and the Cesar Awards.

Watch on Kanopy, free with a library card. Get immediate access to a LAPL e-card or LA County Library Digital Card.
Also available to watch with a subscription or rent on other streaming services.

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Virtual Film Picks are inspired by the in-person Friday Night Films at the Wende program series. This selection is part of a curated list of weekly movie suggestions that can be watched at home, in conjunction with #WendeOnline.