After a five-year hiatus, veteran Polish film director Jerzy Skolimowski is back on the scene. At the age of 77, Skolimowski seems more energized than ever. His latest film, 11 Minutes, an Irish/Polish co-production, wowed audiences in September when it debuted at the 72nd Venice Film Festival and received a special commendation from the festival's Youth Jury. The film also enjoyed packed screenings and favorable buzz at the 40th Toronto International Film Festival, where it was fe...

"So you are a Jewish nun," says Wanda Gruz (Agata Kulesza) on sizing up her niece Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska) in Pawel Pawlikowski's luminous black-and-white drama Ida. The audience shares in Sister Anna's astoundment as she learns that her birth name was Ida Lebenstein. This cowled waif we first meet adorning and adoring a Christ figure, a Jew? Never in her 18 years of coming up in the convent did such a thought ever gefilte her fair head. But now, in wintry Poland of the ea...