We have repaid our debt to our ancestors

A conversation with Iga Strojny and Maksymilian Ludwa, the filmmakers behind „Tarzan. Dzieci tej ziemi”

Iga Strojny is a director who, despite her young age, already boasts numerous artistic achievements. While her work focuses primarily on experimental cinema, her latest project, Tarzan. Dzieci tej ziemi (Tarzan: Children of This Land), is a historical piece. The film tells the story of Corporal Ignacy Boduch, who was murdered in July 1945 by officers of the Department of Public Security (UB). The role is played by Maksymilian Ludwa. The film premiered on July 26, 2025.

Photo: Małgorzata Kmiecicka

What sparked the idea for this theme? Have you always had an interest in history, or was it triggered by a specific event in your life?

Iga Strojny: I have been interested in history ever since I first took part in a competition organized by the nationwide Patria Nostra Foundation. The challenge was to create a sixty-second video about a specific event from Polish history. We placed second across all southern regions and the Polish diaspora, which gave us real momentum. That was also when Kacper Gądek joined our project. Later, at a wedding of a member of the rifle association in Dąbrowa Tarnowska, he approached me and suggested taking on the topic of Volhynia. That project was eventually set aside. Although the script was ready, the story of Ignacy Boduch was suggested to us instead. He was someone virtually forgotten, with practically no information available outside the Institute of National Remembrance archives.

I noticed that you met someone who actually knew Ignacy Boduch in person. How helpful were the insights they provided? Was it one of his close friends?

IS: It was a gentleman named Bartoszek, who lived near Odmęt, the very village where Ignacy was born. He was just ten years old when Ignacy Boduch died at the hands of seven UB officers, and word of it spread through the whole village in no time. Everyone gathered to see Ignacy’s body, which made him an eyewitness to those events.

Judging by the posts on the Tarzan. Dzieci tej ziemi Facebook page, your first production meeting was held in mid-2024, yet I imagine writing began well before then. When did you actually start working on the script?

IS: We started writing the script on that very day.

So you simply got together as a group and began brainstorming right away?

IS: Yes, we pooled our ideas and began shaping them into a cohesive story. From that point on, I wrote the script directly. I decided to take full responsibility for it, perhaps owing to my independent nature, so I simply took the entire writing process into my own hands.
Carrying that entire burden alone must have made the whole screenwriting process quite a significant challenge.

IS: It was certainly a trial for me, largely because I had absolutely zero background in filmmaking. My background is rooted in photography, portraiture in particular, so I had to lean on the visual instincts I had developed over time. In many ways, it was a real leap into the unknown.

At the screening in Tarnów, you noted that you worked with just the bare minimum in terms of film gear.

IS: The gear actually belonged to my father, an avid photographer of twenty years, and we simply pulled it out of his wardrobe. Thanks to private contributions, we managed to purchase a few essentials, including a gimbal and a Rode microphone setup. While it hardly represented a massive technical upgrade, using an image stabilizer went a long way toward giving our footage a cleaner, more professional edge.

How did you assemble the cast? Did you go through an audition process, or did it come together differently?

IS: The cast is made up almost entirely of my inner circle. Casting did not follow the traditional route. Whenever someone showed an interest in participating, I simply wrote a part tailored specifically for them. Maksymilian Ludwa and I share a long-standing friendship, and knowing his remarkable talent from our time together at the IKS Theatre made his involvement natural. These performers are undiscovered talents driven by genuine passion. Over the course of the shoot, we forged a tight-knit ensemble that continues to collaborate on new work. On that note, a four-minute avant-garde short we shot immediately after Tarzan was just selected for a film festival.

What is the title of that film?

IS: Maria. It is not publicly accessible right now because of our festival run, which included a screening at the „Publicystyka” International Independent Film Festival in the Opole region.
So clearly you have no intention of stopping, and new ideas are in the pipeline. Can you tell us anything about them?

IS: Yes, I would love to share a bit about it. The upcoming project dives into the drug underworld, which is quite an intense theme, under the working title Wrona. The screenplay is already complete, with production slated to begin around January 2026. We will be working with a core selection of actors from Tarzan who bring solid stage and on-camera experience to the table. In the meantime, we plan to release several avant-garde pieces, as experimental film remains our true creative focus, and we seem to have found our rhythm there.

So this next project will be completely different, then? No longer historical, but rather showing contemporary realities?

IS: History matters deeply, but we need some distance from it. Historical productions are notoriously tough to pull off, especially when facing tight budgets, wardrobe demands, and prop sourcing. For now, we simply lack the urge to pursue another period piece. Between our three earlier shorts for Patria Nostra and now Tarzan, I believe we have well and truly settled our debt to our ancestors. That chapter feels complete for us at this point.

As the lead actor, what proved to be your greatest hurdle during production?

Maksymilian Ludwa: The biggest hurdle was simply stepping in front of a film camera for the very first time. My background is rooted in live theatre through the IKS company in Tarnów, so the stage comes far more naturally to me than the lens. Navigating that shift required a real mental recalibration. Stage acting demands completely different instincts than screen performance. On top of that, portraying a soldier was an unfamiliar stretch, since military life is about as far from my natural element as it gets.

Even so, the film features moments where you really project that raw command, shouting your lines and delivering them with absolute conviction.

ML: True, because I worked hard to inhabit the mindset of a military man, someone forced to take the lead. Whenever I take on a part, I immerse myself completely in the character, imagining how he would think and move under pressure. I pictured myself in command of those men, holding real responsibility, living inside that soldier’s skin. That mental prep helps me find the emotional truth of a scene. When it came to physical hurdles, though, that infamous axe definitely comes to mind. So much of the shoot felt like trial by fire, like the sequence where I had to chop firewood or swing a scythe. Some people grow up doing that kind of farm work, but I had literally never handled a scythe in my entire life. We had no vintage consultants or experts on set to say, “Swap that axe out, it looks wrong.” We just gave it everything we had and did our absolute best. The trickiest challenges turned out to be those basic, everyday physical tasks.

More of the practical, on-set technicalities, you mean?

ML: Yes, technical matters. I think the challenge came down to individual scenes and specific fragments of the script that had to be acted out, rather than the overall role as a whole.

You mention trying to inhabit your characters completely. Did walking in Ignacy Boduch’s shoes for so long leave a lasting mark on your personal life or how you view the world?

ML: I definitely walk away with a far deeper reverence for figures like Ignacy Boduch, and for the partisan movement as a whole. Embodying him was no simple feat. Living through the physical and emotional demands of the shoot gave me just a faint glimpse into the life of someone whose real suffering exceeded what we captured on camera tenfold. I have always held historical figures in high esteem, but this experience gave me a genuine, visceral reason to hold them in even greater regard.

Right, because in a sense, you lived through Ignacy Boduch’s ordeal firsthand.

ML: Exactly. When you live through someone’s story like that, you develop an intimate connection with them. It becomes strikingly clear that the honor, reverence, and tributes paid to these heroes are deeply earned, which cannot be overstated. Stepping into those shoes bridges the gap between you and the historical figure. On another note, an experience like this really cements relationships on set. It certainly brought me closer to the actors portraying Zosia and Antoni. Working through those shared moments created a genuine bond between us.

What stood out to you as the most powerful scene, the moment that stayed with you or resonated the most emotionally?

ML: Definitely the suicide scene, or rather the suicide attempt. That was an emotional scene, one where I really tried to evoke strong emotions within myself. The same goes for the prayer scene, perhaps even more so the prayer scene, because I was reasonably prepared for the suicide scene, whereas the prayer was completely improvised by me. They simply set up the camera and told me, „Well, Maks, go ahead and pray.” It was an entirely improvised scene. I stood up after that prayer and surprised myself that I was able to summon such intense emotions purely for an improvisation. So I think the prayer and suicide scenes were the most emotional for me, to the point where I needed a moment to cool down afterward.

Iga spoke about an upcoming project on the horizon. Will you be involved in that one as well?

ML: Yes, our upcoming film is titled Wrona. It delves into the criminal underworld, social decay, and young people trapped in the machinery of drug abuse. The story highlights how behind the tragedy of addiction, there is almost always another person coldly orchestrating it, ready to poison and tear down lives with their own hands. This time around, I am actually playing the antagonist: a young ringleader running a small-time drug distribution crew.

Is that going to be one of the lead roles?

ML: The main antagonist. If I am not mistaken, the lead role will actually be played by Szymon Sznajder, who also appeared here in Tarzan as Zosia’s brother, the traitor. He will have the lead part: a boy from poverty, from a troubled family where I believe only his mother stayed with him, whereas I will be playing the villain. I will be the leader of a drug ring who is a ruthless psychopath, destroying in white gloves not only the main character’s life, but the lives of many people in general. It is a role that I hope turns out well for me, one that I am slowly trying to prepare for, though I am only just receiving fragments of the script.