Agata Wieczorek
Writer / Director
Poland / Ireland
Agata Wieczorek (b. 1992) is Polish visual artist and filmmaker based in Ireland. Her work moves between staged documentary and documented fiction, exploring role-play, simulation and technology within medical institutions and sexual practices. Recurring themes: family, childhood, fetishism and medicalisation—are lenses to probe borders between care and violence, and systemic violence as elements of culture. She holds MAs from the National Film School in Łódź and from the Strzemiński Academy of Fine Arts. A former artist-in-residence at Le Fresnoy, she is a recipient of the Irish Government’s IRC Award. She is currently developing new films as a PhD candidate at Dublin City University, where she conducts research on medical cultures and reproductive rights. Her films and artistic work have been shown and awarded internationally across both film festivals, art institutions and collections.
Project
Next of Kin
Ewa, 39, works as a technician at a Medical Simulation Centre in Poland. Her routine: fixing medical robots, and BDSM sex-play by night. After years of estrangement, her mother suddenly reappears. Ewa relives abandonment; childhood’s rage and remorse unravel her structured adult life. Robots she repairs start showing signs of life. Pregnant robot “Victoria” malfunctions, ignoring pregnancy protocols—as if intentionally. BDSM, once a source of balance, fails: Ewa’s body no longer obeys pleasure or pain, rituals no longer yield control. Ewa’s desperate search for a new fetish intertwines with her obsession to fix Victoria. Borders blur: between medical simulation and sex play, between bodies and machines, reality and simulation. Medical fetishism and power-play with Victoria drive Ewa to explore her mother’s past – and to set Ewa’s own limits of violence, against those imposed by past and culture.
