International Series Competition

VARIOLA VERA

Czarna śmierć

Swiss Premiere

Piotr Derewenda, Wojciech Lepianka

Poland

2025, 90'

Series : 7x45'

Onsite
Episodes 1-2/7 (90')

Online

Episodes 3-7/7

Recommended Age

16 years

Genre

THRILLER

VO. Polish

ST. French

With

Anna Karczmarczyk, Tomasz Ziętek

In presence of

Wojciech Lepianka and Piotr Derewenda, Saturday November 7.

Poland, 1963. A smallpox epidemic suddenly strikes Wrocław. While a nurse fights tirelessly to combat the disease, a journalist investigates.

In the early 1960s, Poland is recovering from the wounds of the previous decades and hoping for a better future. But then an outbreak of smallpox—a disease thought to have been eradicated in Europe—breaks out in Wrocław. Igor Bielik, a daring journalist, is determined to uncover its source after his family contracts the virus. Meanwhile, Weronika Przybysz does everything she can at the hospital to prevent its spread. With stunning visual quality, enriched with archival footage and historical anecdotes, Variola Vera recounts the race against time that was this epidemic—the largest Europe had seen before the covid pandemic—and the relentless struggle of those who lived through it to survive and to combat the cover-up orchestrated by the authorities.

Damien Brodard

Creation

Piotr Derewenda, Wojciech Lepianka

Direction

Kuba Czekaj

Image

Wojciech Wegrzyn

Editing

Aleksandra Gowin, Magdalena Chowanska, Andrzej Juraszczyk, Sebastian Mialik

Music

Baasch

Sound

Jaroslaw Bajdowski, Jakub Kozlowski, Maciej Witkowski, Iwona Ejsmund, Maciej Ejsmund