After a trio of shorts a decade or so back, Polish filmmaker Aga Woszczyńska landed on the film scene when her feature debut Silent Land shored up in the prestigious Platform section at TIFF back in 2021 for the hybrid edition of the fest. Pandemic ravaged her showcase, but she returns this year (most probably) with a sophomore feature that examines relationships under pressure, but this time expands into ecological thriller territory and mystery — an internal and external collapse. Here is everything we know so far for … Aga Woszczyńska’s Black Water.
Slowly patched together in late 2023, final funds were being added to the project in 2024 (it was part of the Venice Gap-Financing Market) with production taking place in late 2025 on the Åland Islands, an autonomous Finnish archipelago in the Baltic Sea.
Written by Woszczyńska and Łukasz Czapski, this follows the mysterious disappearance of two men amid an ecological disaster on the Åland Islands, their partners begin their own investigation as an oil spill looms offshore. The island is at a standstill. Nature takes control over everything. Exterior landscapes mirror internal emotions of the women. Stuck in this bizarre, post-catastrophe lingering, they find solace in helping birds smeared with oil. This seeming time of captivity helps the women discover themselves and each other and understand freedom and tenderness.
Woszczyńska re-teamed with the Silent Land tandem of Agnieszka Żulewska and Dobromir Dymecki, and added Lisa Carlehed, Tomasz Włosok and Erik Enge.
Woszczyńska re-teams with cinematography Bartosz Świniarski, and her superb editor Jarosław Kamiński, and composer Piotr Kurek. Production design duties go to Antti Nikkinen. Lava Films’ Agnieszka Wasiak produced the project.
While this could take a full year in post pushing it into 2027, this really could land anywhere from Locarno comp, to Venice sidebars, to a return to Toronto and/or a showcase at Donostia San Sebastián in 2026.
