Defiant Hearts — Video Project 2020/2023

Defiant Hearts

dir. Katarzyna Swinarska | experimental | 2021 | 28’ 41”

Katarzyna Swinarska, as a mother of three children and an artist who for many years after her studies could not deal with art, decides to take up the topic that is most important to her and her work. She invites to participate in her film such artists as: Honorata Martin, Anna Orbaczewska, Ania Witkowska, Anna Steller, Anna Reinert… who successfully combine their artistic career with motherhood. Each of them, in turn, locks up in the cabin of a music studio to talk about how they manage to reconcile their ideals, ambitions and desires with the difficult everyday life in a conservative and patriarchal society.

The artists' moving stories are juxtaposed with minimalist video portraits shot by Alina Żemojdzin. Intimate stories are intertwined with dramatic shots of women's strikes in Warsaw and Gdansk against the extreme tightening of anti-abortion law.

The film was realized with the financial support of the Pomeranian Voivodeship for artists.

The movie “Defiant Hearts” has been followed by “Defiant Hearts, Part 2” about women artists who chose to have no children, and finally “Defiant Hearts vol. 3” (still in progress) about old women artists, who probably know what’s more important: Art or Love?.

Defiant Hearts, Part 1, video, 28’41” with English subtitles: https://youtu.be/HbN2HgrfkB0

Defiant Hearts, Part 2, video, 25’01” with English subtitles:
https://youtu.be/iZac85kQ7wg

Realised with financial help of Gdańsk City 2022, 2023 and Pomeranian Voivodeship 2020

“Defiant Hearts” one-day exhibition in private space, showing videos, paintings, installations by women artists who took part in the film “Defiant Hearts vol. 1”. Phot.: Alina Żemojdzin