The inhabitants of a village witness an unusual event. The religious figures that surround them come alive and leave their accustomed places. The statues step down from shrines and niches, from altars and pedestals. They turn their backs on the village. Nobody knows where they are heading and why they are departing.

Most of the people are frozen in religious adoration, but some of them overpower a statue of the Virgin Mary and smash it on the ground. The fragments of the broken statue, however, live on, and are still heading away. A young girl – born boneless and unable to move without help – manages to make contact with one of the departing statues.

Going under or a lonely island life – there is not exactly a surfeit of options in this Polish village by the sea. The community functions, but social intercourse is rough, alcohol present. Archaic-seeming rituals and social patterns are handed down from the old to the young men. Winter envelops the village in white silence which every now and then betrays its deceptive appearance in small things. At midnight on Christmas Eve the voices of the dead and tortured souls ring out. Anka lives in the middle of this. The young woman takes hits, gets up, struggles through with her love of Jesus.

“Zima” portrays a state of suspension with occasional rollercoaster rides and builds up to tremendous emotional power. Colours are rare in the black and white drawings of the winter landscape and the dark houses, but when they appear, they lend great intensity to the events. Scenes of daily routines and village life are associatively interwoven both on the sound and graphic level. They burst with excess and expressive design, transforming into mystical dream images.