Annual Top Films Lists

Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2017: # 100. Urszula Antoniak’s Beyond Words

Published on January 3, 2017

Beyond Words

Director: Urszula Antoniak
Writer: Urszula Antoniak

Polish director Urszula Antoniak won Best First Feature (and several other prizes) at Locarno for her 2009 debut Nothing Personal, then followed that up with a pair of controversially themed titles, such as 2011’s Code Blue (kind of a female perspective synonym for Franco’s later film, Chronic) and 2014’s Nude Area. Her fourth film, Beyond Words, is a Dutch/Polish co-production touching on issues of immigration as it focuses on a Polish lawyer living in Berlin who receives an unexpected visit from his father.

Cast: Jakub Gierszal, Andrzej Chyra, Philip Wilhelmi, Christian Lober.

Production Co.: Family Affair Films, NIKO Film, Opus Film.

U.S. Distributor: Rights available.

Release Date: Antoniak brought her sophomore film Code Blue to Directors’ Fortnight, while Nude Area premiered closer to home at the Gdynia Polish Film Festival. Beyond Words filmed over the summer, and the topical subject matter could be a return to Cannes.

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Nicholas Bell

Los Angeles based Nicholas Bell is IONCINEMA.com's Chief Film Critic and covers film festivals such as Sundance, Berlin, Cannes and TIFF. He is part of the critic groups on Rotten Tomatoes, The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA), the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and GALECA. His top 3 for 2021: France (Bruno Dumont), Passing (Rebecca Hall) and Nightmare Alley (Guillermo Del Toro). He was a jury member at the 2019 Cleveland International Film Festival.