Over life

Production and year: Poland, 2013 Original title: Nad życie Genre: biography, drama Cast: Olga Bołądź, Michał Żebrowski Medical topic: myelodysplastic syndrome, acute leukemia Description: A film based on a story everyone knows. The main character is a young, talented volleyball player diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome. Despite this, she manages to achieve significant success. Unfortunately, her condition worsens, and a transplant is necessary. When a donor is found, it turns out that the woman is pregnant. She decides to give birth to the child. At any cost. This is the fifth film in the True Stories series, the first to be released in theaters. The story is definitely worth telling, although the film itself didn’t blow me away. The only character whose acting caught my attention was Danuta Stenka. The film’s quality alone isn’t the best, as evident from the first scene, where a meager crowd cheers on the volleyball players during the European Championships. For me, the film was interesting in that, at the time the story took place, my knowledge of hematology was far more limited. The fact that I came across it now allowed me to view the whole thing from a slightly different perspective. I recommend the film, but mainly because of Agata Mróz’s story itself.