"During the Third Reich, the Germans produced propaganda films showing Poles as bandits and murderers. Today they have Agnieszka Holland to do it for them," posted Poland's justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, on X (formerly Twitter) earlier this week.
Mr Ziobro was referring to a new film, 'Green Border' by Polish director Agnieszka Holland, a three-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker.
Ms Holland’s film tells the story of a Syrian family that tries to cross the border from Belarus into Poland.
Mr Ziobro's comments come during early campaigning for closely-contested parliamentary and senate elections, to be held on 15 October.
Poland’s right-wing government, of which Mr Ziobro's party Sovereign Poland is a minor coalition party, plans to hold a referendum on the European Union’s new migrant pact deal on the same day as the election.
Both Sovereign Poland and the larger right-wing Law and Justice party oppose EU migrant quotas.
Though based on a fictional family, 'Green Border' represents the experience of thousands of migrants who attempt to cross into the European Union via Belarus each year.
The film, set to be released in Poland on 22 September, also depicts the role of members of the Polish Border Guard who patrol the area, and Polish humanitarian volunteers who try to provide aid to refugees.
So far this year, more than 19,000 "illegal immigrants" have crossed into Poland from Belarus, according to the Polish Border Guard.
Most of those migrants do not claim asylum in Poland, and continue west, often to Germany.
In late 2021, the border became the scene of a standoff between thousands of migrants, sandwiched between the Polish Border Guard on one side, and Belarusian security forces on the other.
Since then, the Polish government has constructed a 5.5-metre steel fence along the 186km border, currently patrolled by 10,000 Polish soldiers in response to heightened tensions with Kremlin-ally Belarus.
In an interview this week with Catholic radio station, Radio Maryja, Mr Ziobro also said that Ms Holland "subscribes to Russian propaganda", a reference to the Polish government’s assertion that migrants who cross into Poland from Belarus are part of a "hybrid war", organised by Moscow and Minsk to destabilise Poland and the EU.
Another referendum question on election day will ask Poles if they "support" the removal of the country’s border barrier with Belarus.
However, Poland's opposition parties are not proposing the removal of the steel barrier.
Mr Ziobro's 18 MPs provide Law and Justice with a wafer-thin 3-seat majority in the 460-seat Polish parliament, the Sejm.
Poland's justice minister has opposed EU plans to relocate refugees from Muslim-majority countries since coming to office in 2015.
In June, shortly after Poland opposed the EU's new migrant relocation pact, he wrote on Twitter that, "we will not allow Polish cities to be turned into war zones or ghettos full of aggressive, culturally alien hostile groups".
Ms Holland responded swiftly to Mr Ziobro’s remarks about her film on Wednesday, issuing an open letter via her lawyer on Facebook.
In the letter, Ms Holland said that she found Mr Ziobro's comparison of her to Nazi propagandists to be "so despicable that it leaves zero space for any polemic", adding that she was the daughter of a Warsaw Uprising veteran and the granddaughter of Holocaust victims.
Ms Holland has instructed her lawyers to commence legal proceedings against Mr Ziobro if he does not issue an apology for his remarks within seven days, along with a payment of 50,000 Polish zloty (€10,800) to the Children of the Holocaust association.
'Green Border' reportedly received a 15-minute standing ovation when it screened earlier this week at the Venice Film Festival, and is tipped as a contender for the Golden Lion, awarded to the festival's best film, when announced on Sunday.
Ms Holland's previous films in a 40-year career have tackled political and historical subjects in Polish society.
She received her previous Oscar nomination in 2011 for 'In Darkness', a film about a Polish sewerage worker in Lviv during World War II, who saved the lives of Jewish families by hiding them in the city's network of sewers.
