Set in the 1960s Polish People’s Republic, this haunting Bafta 2015 winner from director Pawel Pawlikowski (My Summer of Love) begins as Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), a teenage novitiate nun, is about to take her final vows. When her hard-living, hard-drinking aunt Wanda Gruz (Agata Kulesza) persuades the Mother Superior to let Anna visit, she leaves the rural convent for Gdańsk. There, Anna’s aunt informs her of her true identity and, in their different ways, the two women face some unsettling realities.
 
Filming for the first time in his homeland, Pawlikowski uses gritty monochrome and an almost square screen format to evoke a bleak and anxious communist era. The two leads, especially the luminous newcomer Trzebuchowska, skilfully convey the quietly complex emotions with which their characters struggle.