A Geography of Strangers | Film Screening

“A Geography of Strangers” is an autobiographical exploration of life after Brexit from the perspective of a queer Polish immigrant living in London. The short film is divided into two parts: the first traces the shifting political landscape in the UK and the rise of right-wing politics across Europe; the second examines the role of women in domestic spaces, highlighting the repetition and absurdity of mundane tasks, and the loneliness that emerges from inherited gender roles in Central and Eastern Europe. 

“A Geography of Strangers” combines self-portraiture, Polish folklore, political speeches, and archival news footage with the natural and post-communist landscapes of the artist’s hometown in southern Poland. In Part I, Rabikowska films herself outside the communist-era apartment bloc where she lived until the age of ten, before her family moved to the UK. In Part II, she records herself engaging with the natural landscape of her maternal village, recreating the sounds, tasks, and roles performed by the women in her family during her childhood, collecting wood, lighting fires, sweeping, and feeding animals. 

Growing up between two countries, two languages and two cultures, Rabikowska carries the rupture of leaving her home town, which underpins this work. In 2025, Keir Starmer triggered controversy with a speech on immigration, stating the UK risked becoming “an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together.” In “Infinite City” Rebecca Solnit writes that a map is a story about space; the stories we tell about the world can change the world. The film reflects on the parallel transformations of the UK and Poland, examining how right-wing populism reshapes ideas of nationhood, community, and intimacy. By mapping lived experience against political rhetoric, the film asks who gets to belong, who becomes a “stranger,” and how new geographies of solidarity might still be drawn. 

A film by Zula Rabikowska
Presented by Rethinking Eastern Europe
Duration 11 minutes 49 seconds
2026