Agata the Writer Review: Wasikowska Shines in Venice Debut — SkimNews
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- "Agata the Writer" premiered at the Venice Film Festival in the Giornate degli Autori sidebar, with Variety calling it "among the most bracingly singular works" at the festival.
- Kuba Dorabialski makes his feature debut with sole credit for writing, cinematography, editing, and scoring, also appearing on screen as a sound recordist.
- Mia Wasikowska plays Agata, a Polish-Australian satirical novelist who travels to Sarajevo to research a Bosnian War father-daughter story, marking her return to substantial film roles since "Bergman Island."
- Vedrana Božinović co-stars as Jasmina, a brusque Sarajevo theater director who confronts Agata's outsider naivety — snapping "Enjoy? It was genocide" when asked about living through the war.
- The film subverts writer's-block conventions by halting action to immerse viewers in Agata's incomplete draft via voiceover, "delivered in voiceover, stopping any action dead in its tracks."
- An art-theft subplot running through the house where Agata stays feeds her growing fear she may be "some kind of art thief herself" for writing about history she hasn't lived.
- The Canadian Oscar submission "Nina Roza" is cited as the film's closest tonal and thematic companion among 2025 festival titles.
Why it matters: Dorabialski arrives as a rare multi-hyphenate auteur — writer, cinematographer, editor, and composer on his debut — while the film gives Wasikowska one of her first meaty post-2010s roles, a notable re-entry for an actress Variety describes as "always such a visible and deliberate thinker on screen."
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