
Them is a film registration of an experiment for which Żmijewski
convinces representatives of four social groups actively present in the
public life of contemporary Poland to gather together in a seven-day
workshop to negotiate their disparate, if not opposing, beliefs and
political convictions. Each of these factions has secured a reputation as
an ideologically uncompromising political group.
Members of the neo-nationalist Union of Polish Youth, elderly women
representing fundamentalist Catholics, Jewish youth, and left-wing
activists of a younger generation each formulate their respective positions
through the creation of an insignia, painting symbols of their ideologies
on a large sheet of paper. They agree to react to each other's creations
and the initial comments and critiques soon turn into physical
interventions, leading participants to alter the work of one another by
overpainting, cutting, and burning it. These actions escalate gradually,
but with a sense of inevitability, into an open confrontation.