“Doppelgänger. The Double” (2023)

The work

The film was directed by Jan Holoubek from a screenplay by Andrzej Gołda, produced by Anna Waśniewska for TVN Warner Bros. Discovery, co-financed by the Polish Film Institute and distributed by Next Film. Hans leads the orderly life of an official in Strasbourg; Jan Bitner is a Sopot resident involved with Solidarity. A certain detail links them and makes both men question their own identity.¹

The film opened the 48th Polish Film Festival (Festiwal Polskich Filmów Fabularnych) in Gdynia on 18 September 2023 and was released in cinemas on 29 September 2023.^2,4

Where the idea came from

According to media and secondary accounts · not confirmed by official sourcesAccording to RMF24, the film was inspired by the true stories of agents of the communist-era Polish services who assumed other people’s identities in order to build false relationships and espionage careers; no names or specific cases were given.^2,4

According to media and secondary accounts · not confirmed by official sourcesGołda said that he had become interested in agents of the communist-era services almost ten years before the film, and that he saw the documentary at a festival in his home town of Kielce. The director, Jan Holoubek, described the story as a clash of two worlds and a production challenge; neither he nor the screenwriter indicated which elements are invented.³

According to media and secondary accounts · not confirmed by official sourcesAndrzej Gołda told the Polish Press Agency (PAP) that his starting point was a documentary by a German journalist of Polish origin about a family in Germany wronged by a Polish spy: he came to Bremen, won the trust of his adoptive family, operated under cover for six years and was then unmasked. What interested the screenwriter most was what happened in between – the psychological and emotional cost of constant deception.³

What is known about real practice

In intelligence, operating under an assumed identity in a foreign country, without diplomatic protection, is called the work of an illegal, and the invented life story is called a legend (see the glossary entries illegal and legend).

Dominik Smyrgała points out that there are few reliable sources on illegals and that it is hard to separate information from disinformation.⁵

What remains unclear

We have not established which case the documentary that inspired the screenwriter is about, or which communist-era Polish service it concerned. Without that, the film cannot be compared with the records; nor have we found a historian who has made such a comparison.³