Put Ida on your must see list.

Pawel Pawlikowski’s film tells the story of a young novice in 1960s Poland who is just about to take her vows. Before making that final commitment to the Catholic Church, she learns a terrible family secret from her aunt.

The most notable aspect of the film is its remarkable cinematography. Imagine the most beautiful and evocative series of black and white stills – striking in their simplicity but complex in terms of light and emotion – then see them slide into motion.

That’s how I felt watching the film, focused on the beauty of the image to such a strong degree that sometimes I would be caught off-guard when an impossibly lovely image, carefully conceived and crafted, would move.

So remarkable and distinctive is the look of the film, in fact, that it is particularly shocking to see that not one but two cinematographers are credited with shooting the film, Ryscard Lenczewski and Lukasz Zal. According to online sources, Lenczewski had to leave the project ten days into the shoot because of medical issues.

There have been countless films and books and plays, both fiction and non-fiction, about the horrors of World War II, but this particular film feels original and is flawless in all elements of storytelling.