A legal thriller
FIGHTCLUB for the mind, a sparring match over truth, trust, and credibility in modern justice (post-1948). Told from the vantage point of the courtroom, where facts and meaning should cohere, but unravel instead.
THE FILM
Two men. Two life stories. A tale of inverted justice set in post-Soviet Poland, where the promise of Western democracy clashes with post-Soviet ghosts.
In 2001, MIREK,a visionary entrepreneur who gave up American success to rebuild his homeland, is charged with a surreal crime: defrauding himself. This preposterous accusation triggers the longest-running criminal trial in EU history, 24 years and counting, turning a success story into a slow-motion, state-sponsored annihilation. Meanwhile, LARRY, a diagnosed psychopath who once murdered a woman at random “to watch her spirit leave her body”, is released on parole and thrives. Prosecutors and judges silence those who try to expose his new crimes, turning victims into unwitting accomplices in a vicious loop of abuse and cover-up. Following these trials for over a decade, the film exposes the scaffolding of a broken system. Two grotesquely inverted life stories function as the black box of justice, recording everything the system tries to hide and all it refuses to learn.
This isn’t just a film. It’s an integrity system: an island of coherence, a model of possibility, a tool to reclaim awareness and agency, and an invitation to choose differently.
Filmed in Poland, Brussels, Strasbourg, and New York.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
This is a human story, not an abstract, exotic-sounding issue piece. Everyone has a stake in it, even if they don’t yet realize it. Happiness only can be conceived as precursor to—or a byproduct of —justice. Even Alice in Wonderland ends in a trial. […] What fascinates and alarms me is how quietly justice has become delinked from democracy and how seamlessly this rupture has been normalized. It’s as if a silent pact has been made to stop asking questions at a certain threshold. […]
This film isn’t about a “bug in the system”. It’s about system itself. Over the years, I’ve uncovered many stories like this one: innocent people trapped in legal limbo for decades. These “captivity stories” are portals into a world of casual cruelty and deep contempt, like unexploded bombs hidden beneath public discourse. They lay bare the system’s actual deign: pre-democratic power doesn’t collapse. It mutates, embeds, and resurfaces withing the architecture of legitimacy.
Every judicial system rests on one core assumption and faces one central challenge: judicial integrity. Once that assumption collapses, what remains?
Courts matter more than any other state institution. Every problem in society eventually reaches the courtroom. Judges construct our image of what’s normal and what’s legal. In the post-Auschwitz era, the courts represent the limits of our humanness.
Poland is the first state to sustain two parallel justice systems: official constitutional courts and shadow judges, both sanctioned by the government. This legal duality, born from the afterlife of autocracy (2015–2023), has forged a twilight zone where pre-democratic power seeps back into the architecture of legitimacy.
The concept of inverted justice, imparted by prosecutors and judges in Poland, is counterintuitive to normal mind. Breaking the law and biding by the law, simply put, are polar opposites. I’ve always thought criminals are those punished, not their victims.
CAMILA, a crime victim
I don’t have a problem with Polish law. It protects people and businesses pretty well. For the last two decades, I have been fighting judges and prosecutors who break it.
MIREK CIEŁUSZECKI, 24 years on trial for “defrauding himself”
The courts must be independent. They have never been independent after 1989 […] If the judicial profession were open to people with experience and achievements, without obligations to the authorities, we would not tremble today for democracy and the tripartite division of power.
JUDGE JACEK IGNACZEWSKI, author “The Justice System. Present and Future” (2008)
JOIN US
You are cordially invited to attend a sneak peek screening of making of/ behind the scenes of A REPORT FROM THE PLACE WHERE NOTHING HAPPENS and a follow-up discussion.
WHEN:
Tuesday, May 20, 2025, 1 pm PST for US-based participants
Wednesday, May 21, 2025, 2 pm CET (GMT+1) for European audiences
WHERE:
Please email Marzena for a registration link marzena@nostos-films.com
PARTNER WITH US
This film isn’t just meant to be watched — it’s meant to be used. As a mirror. As a flashlight. As a crowbar.
If you want to:
trace the hidden circuitry of corrupted power
resist the erosion of legal guarantees within the courtroom
reclaim language from those who bend it to protect impunity
…then this story might be a tool. A catalyst. Even a partner in your work. We’re looking for collaborators — especially legal professionals — who know the architecture of justice is beginning to crack, and who feel the silence around it growing louder by the day.
SUPPORT WHAT WE DO
Fiscal sponsor THE FILM COLLABORATIVE
https://www.thefilmcollaborative.org/fiscalsponsorship/projects/hijackingthetruth
Direct paypal link
https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=RKP5Q4RQ7DLJW
MEET THE TEAM
Marzena Grzegorczyk
DIRECTOR, PRODUCER
Marzena Grzegorczyk PhD is a screenwriter, film director, producer, and author. She works in both, documentary and feature films. Concurently to shotting HIJCKING, she’s been working on a book, Semiotic Black Holes, Misguided Paradigms and Justice à Rebours. On the art of having rights on the periphery of Europe. An informal system update. Both, the book and the film, are based on her decade long observation of the inner workings of the Polish courts.
Magdalena Bojdo
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Magda graduated with an MFA from the Polish National Film School in Lodz. During the course of her studies, Magda shot nearly 20 short films as a DP, two of which premiered at the Camerimage Festival. Often referred to as a good listener, she loves to shoot documentaries. She believes there is never shortage of people to look at and learn from.
Mateusz William Gugałka
PRODUCER, CINEMATOGRAPHER
Mateusz worked for three years as a cinematographer and editor on one of the most popular NETFLIX’s shows, TIGER KING. He was as a multimedia journalist for Telemundo Oklahoma. In 2020 the book he published a book, KRÓL TYGRYSÓW JEST NAGI [Sine Qua Non], which he co-authored with Bartosz Czartoryski. Mateusz was born in New York. Currently he resides in Warsaw.
Thierry Malet
COMPOSER
Thierry has composed music for more than 100 documentaries and more than 200 films for TV and cinema. He is one of the top ten French composers [the IMDB International Star Meter Rank, 2020]. In 2005, for his score for the film IMAGO, which won the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes festival, Thierry was awarded the SACEM prize for the best film score and was nominated for an Oscar.
UPCOMING EVENTS
SEPTEMBER
12
1 PM PST
Filming A REPORT FROM THE PLACE WHERE NOTHING HAPPENS Behind the scenes and Q&A with the director, Marzena Grzegorczyk.
PST time zone (for US-based viewers). For a registration link, email Marzena [marzena@nostos-films.com]. Please join us!
SEPTMBER
13
2 PM CET
Filming A REPORT FROM THE PLACE WHERE NOTHING HAPPENS. Behind the scenes and Q&A with the director, Marzena Grzegorczyk.
CET time zone (for European audiences). For a registration link, email Marzena [marzena@nostos-films.com]. Please join us!
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Behind the scenes
HIJACKING THE TRUTH and Q&A with the director
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HIJACKING THE TRUTH is an independent film, fiscally sponsored by the FILM COLLABORATIVE. Tax deductible donnation is possible through the FC website