'Ida' coming to Philadelphia

In February, our Kayleigh Butera called Ida her favorite at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and now Philly film aficionados can check out this remarkable movie for themselves.

Ida, directed by Pawel Pawlikowski, is about 18-year-old Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), an orphan who is about to take her convent vows in 1960s Poland. But an unexpected meeting with her only living relative teaches this sheltered nun-to-be that her real name is Ida, she’s Jewish, and that her family were victims of the Holocaust.

“This revelation triggers a heart-wrenching journey into the countryside, to the family house and into the secrets of the repressed past, evoking the haunting legacy of the Holocaust and the realities of postwar Communism,” says a release about the film.

“The beauty of it shocked me awake. Ida is unlike any other film I have seen,” Butera wrote of the black-and-white movie. And it's been winning awards for the past year, including the Toronto International Film Festival’s 2013 International Critics Award, Best Film at the 2013 London Film Festival, and many others across the world.

Ida, rated PG-13 with an 80-minute run time, will open locally at Ritz Theatres on May 30. To read Kayleigh Butera's review, click here. To learn more about the film, visit the website.