Portrait of a Polish-Jewish Family in an American Interior: “Anya (In and Out of Focus)” by Marian Marzyński

Mikołaj Jazdon

Abstract

Issues concerning national identity occupy an important place in the whole work of Marian Marzyński, a Polish documentary filmmaker of Jewish descent working in the United States for years. His autobiographical Anya (In and Out of Focus) (2004), consisting of videos documenting thirty years of the life of his daughter and the whole Marzyński family, describes a continuous process of “negotiating” the national identity by Polish immigrants during three decades of living in the USA. In his film Marzyński focuses on two persons - his daughter Anya and the director himself. For Anya Marzynski the question of her na­tional identity stems from the fact of growing up in a country of immigrants. For Marian Marzyński the question of his personal identity is a more complex matter and stems from his personal experience inex- tricably linked to the dramatic events in the Polish history of the 20^th century: the Holocaust, reconstruction of the country after World War II, anti-Jewish persecution in March 1968, Polish August ‘80, as well as life in exile in Denmark and the USA. The director of the film juxtaposes the two personal histories show- ing how complicated might be the answers to the questions: who are you? what is your nationality?