Polish director Jan Holoubek's Second World War thriller "Wild Wild East", which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, is being presented by its creators not as a historical drama but as a warning about the present. Holoubek and producer Ewa Puszczyńska, who also worked on "The Zone of Interest", "Ida" and "Cold War", say the film's themes of nationalism and complicity feel newly urgent given the rise of right-wing movements in Europe and Russia's war in Ukraine, and hope it will resonate particularly with younger audiences unfamiliar with where nationalism can lead.

Set in 1943, the film follows a German official investigating the disappearance of a man tasked with protecting a Jewish family's riches in a remote Polish village, uncovering widespread secrecy and guilt among Polish, Ukrainian, Jewish and German characters alike. Holoubek deliberately drew on Westerns and thrillers rather than conventional war drama, inviting comparisons to Tarantino, while Puszczyńska says the genre approach allows serious issues to be tackled with an unexpected twist. The film, sold by Global Constellation and starring Itay Tiran, Robert Więckiewicz, Joanna Kulig and Magdalena Różczka, arrives amid ongoing sensitivity in Poland over its wartime history, with both filmmakers describing it as a subtle but deliberate challenge to national self-image.