Winner of this year's best foreign language film Oscar, director Pawel Pawlikowski's Ida is a moving tale, set in Communist-era Poland, of a young woman's search for her past and the decisions she has to make about the future. Pawlikowski, who was born in Poland but grew up in the UK, has returned to his geographical and cinematic roots with a black-and-white film that is reminiscent of the Eastern European New Wave movement of the 1960s that produced filmmakers such as Roman Polanski and Milos Forman.It is 1962 and Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska) is a young novitiate about to take her vows. Before she does she is sent to visit her aunt, Wanda (Agata Kulesza), a former judge fond of drink and sex. Anna learns that she is actually Jewish and together she and Wanda embark on a road trip to try to discover what happened to her parents during the war.They are an unusual couple - the virgin and the whore, so to speak - and their journey takes them through a bleak, grey country where people are more concerned with keeping their heads down than confronting their horrific past.Pawlikowski is able to confront the uncomfortable issue of Polish complicity in the Holocaust.Beautifully filmed by Ryszard Lenczewski and Lukasz Zal with off-centre frames that reflect the emotional journeys of the two women and the changing dynamics of their relationship, Ida is both a homage to Eastern Europe's cinematic past and a thoroughly modern film in terms of its philosophical and political outlook.Despite its grim subject matter, it is not all doom and gloom thanks to the performances from its stars and scenes with a gentle touch, such as a jazz band gig in an Iron Curtain hotel bar that invokes the satirical novels of Czech writer Josef Skvoreck.By the time Ida decides who she wants to be, what has begun as a grim journey into a shameful past has been transformed into a touching piece of social realism about one woman's search for identity in a world in which being different is discouraged.'Ida' screens at Cinema Nouveau theatres as part of the European Film Festival which takes place in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban until May 17...