Having wowed audiences at Cannes, BIFF, Sitges, and Fantastic Fest, Julia Kowalski’s HER WILL BE DONE opens in New York City at The Roxy Cinema on September 24th, leading up to its nationwide VOD launch on October 2nd. This acclaimed, dramatic slice of folk horror offers a unique, female-driven perspective and surreal, stunning visuals guaranteed to mesmerize.
Trapped in a small French village by a loving but overprotective father and a failing farm she helps keep running, Nawojka longs to go to veterinary school and get away from her brothers-turned-bullies and her judgemental small town.
But her real problem is the demonic curse that she inherited from her mother—the one that apparently killed said mother and plagues her constantly, filling her head with demented visions that seem to keep coming true.
When she’s not caring for the family cows or cooking for her ungrateful siblings, she’s praying and spending her nights in agony as she tries to resist the pull of evil.
And then Sandra shows up. The ‘bad girl’ daughter of the recently deceased couple next door, Sandra wants to be in the town as much as the villagers seem to want her there—that is to say, not at all. Except Nawojka. Whether it’s the allure of freedom or of forbidden love is unclear at first, but the very sight of Sandra awakens something in Nawojka. At the same time, Sandra sees the truth in Nawojka—that she needs to get away from the overbearing small minds around her.
In her second feature film, director Julia Kowalski delivers an ethereal, at times psychedelic, trip through the muddy tediousness of a hard rural life. Her collaborators, cinematographer Simon Beaufils and composer Daniel Kowalski, help bring this folk-horror-adjacent aesthetic to life. Combined with a powerful performance from Maria Wróbel as Nawojka, HER WILL BE DONE delivers a brutal look at the quiet oppressiveness of small minds and toxic masculinity in a creepy, claustrophobic atmosphere.
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