Part of the BellaTOFIFEST International Film Festival and the Polish-Scottish Mini Festival
Co-organised and hosted by the Film and Visual Culture Department, the George Washington Wilson Centre for Art and Visual Culture, and the Elphinstone Institute
Note: The screening will be followed by an in-person Q&A session with director Wojciech Smarzowski.
Home Sweet Home (Dom Dobry) has resonated strongly with Polish audiences, breaking records at the Polish box office on its way to becoming one of the highest grossing films in Poland in 2025. Starring Agata Turkot and Tomasz Schuchard, Home Sweet Home is a story of intense romance that quickly becomes a harrowing tale of domestic abuse, violence, and controlling behaviour.
The power of the film lies in its refusal to present this as one woman's tragic tale or one man's violent nature, but rather as the direct result of a society that tacitly enables domestic abuse through a culture of silence and conformity. Though some have labelled the film brutal, the violence is not depicted for gratuitous, sensationalist purposes. Survivors of domestic abuse have pointed to the accuracy of the film, not just in its depictions of physical abuse, but also in how it portrays emotional abuse and isolation.
Wojciech Smarzowski (1963), director, screenwriter, cinematographer, is one of the most important contemporary filmmakers of Polish cinema. Known for his uncompromising style and drastic realism, Smarzowski’s visceral films examine institutional and societal hypocrisy, considering Polish history and society through a critical lens.
His feature debut, The Wedding (2004), which was awarded the Golden Lion at the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia, brought him nationwide fame. Subsequent films like The Dark House (2009), Rose (2011), The Traffic Department (2012), Hatred (2016), Clergy (2018), and The Wedding (2021), cemented his position as a filmmaker who boldly takes up difficult and controversial topics, such as alcoholism, violence, mechanisms of power, hypocrisy, and historical traumas.
Smarzowski's films have won numerous awards in Poland and abroad, including the Eagles (Polish Film Awards) and the Golden Lions, and honorable mentions at festivals in Karlovy Vary and Moscow. He is winner of the Polityka Passport and was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polish Restituta. At the BellaTofiFest he was awarded the Golden Angel for his career of creative defiance.
Content Warning:
The film contains violence, sex, nudity, and strong depictions of physical and mental domestic abuse.
- Speaker
- Wojciech Smarzowski
- Hosted by
- hosted by the Film and Visual Culture Department, the George Washington Wilson Centre, and the Elphinstone Institute
- Venue
- Regent Lecture Theatre
- Contact
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Free screening, no booking required. Questions can be sent to elphinstone@abdn.ac.uk.