The Peasants

In 2017, the directing couple Dorota Kobiela (nowadays known as DK Welchman) and Hugh Welchman made a big impression with Loving Vincent. This film about the life of Vincent van Gogh was the first animated film ever to be painted in its entirety. For their new film The Peasants, the two took inspiration from Polish artists; the story is an adaptation of the novel Chlopi by Nobel Prize-winning Polish writer Władysław Reymont, while the hand-painted images are inspired by the work of 19th- and 20th-century Polish painters Józef Chelmonski, Ferdynand Ruszczyc and Leon Wyczólkowski.

In a village in rural Poland, everyday life is dominated by jealousy, gossip of and endless feuds. In that world, where women have no say, free-spirited peasant girl Jagna has to hold her own. Difficult because she is forced into a marriage with the rich but much older peasant Boryna, while she is actually in love with his son Antek.