A former teacher, Jasiek leaves a big city for a quiet life in a small village. He starts to work as a security guard for a bankrupt state-owned farm, which brings him into contact with three characters: a village weirdo who recites Greek poetry, a teenager who closely observes the world around him, and a 10-year-old girl who ran away from her nouveau riche parents.

Lyrical and subtly humorous, writer-director Andrzej Jakimowski’s Squint Your Eyes shows how beauty can be discovered behind the surface of a seemingly banal reality. The film suggests that in order to perceive what is most important in life, you just have to stop for a while and squint your eyes. It was made in only three weeks with little financial support from the film industry. Yet this independent approach works to the film’s advantage, allowing it to capture things that are beyond the reach of mainstream cinema. It won the Special Jury Prize at the San Francisco International Film Festival.