Wedding Day

Southeast US Premiere

In Poland’s official entry for the Academy Awards, long-buried secrets resurface at the wedding of an affluent Polish family, as the tragic past is hauntingly revisited on them in this masterful and provocative drama. Ryszard Wilk's daughter is getting married. But before the ceremony can even begin, two Israeli men arrive unannounced to deliver a Righteous Among Nations medal to Ryszard’s senile father, Antoni. Horrified by their intrusion, Ryszard wants to keep it secret, but their visit triggers Antoni’s memory about another wedding that occurred in 1941. The two weddings converge in his confused mind, unleashing family secrets in a culminating moment that recreates probably the most disgraceful event in recent Polish history — the massacre of the town’s Jewish community. The past and present intertwine such that Antoni “sees” people from his youth attending the wedding. They symbolize the denial of crimes committed as the film reiterates the well-known, often ignored truth that those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Controversial and provocative in equal measure, The Wedding Day resurrects for public discussion Polish crimes against Jews during the Nazi occupation in a hard-hitting, warts-and-all story that respects the bitter truth and doesn’t allow the unpalatable events and themes in Poland’s history to stay buried and forgotten. This is an incendiary film that will remain with you long after the credits roll.