Pakosiński’s Case

The film tells the story of a true, extraordinary figure – Pekosiński, a man with a false identity whose roots go back to wartime. He lives in Zamość, is about 53 years old, but doesn’t know who he really is. His life has been artificially constructed by the systems that manipulated him. His symbolic birth date – September 1, 1939, the day World War II broke out – and his surname, derived from the acronym of the welfare institution PKOS, are elements of this forced biography. Pekosiński was born in a camp in Zwierzyniec, and his mother, unable to keep him in the camp, threw him over the barbed wire, giving rise to his false story. His whole life is thus built on lies – friends, guardians, and even the idea of family have all turned out to be mere artificial constructs. The only real things left to Pekosiński are his orphanhood and the hunchback, which symbolize his harsh fate.