Upon arriving in Poland, the Bui sisters began to discover the mysteries of Polish Romanticism, and were stricken with awe. Their fascination with Slavic mythology, culture, and folklore led them to make films inspired by these ancient traditions.
The Bui sisters grew up in the south of France. Their father came from Vietnam, their mother from Poland. They were unfamiliar with the Slavic world, but when they moved to Poland as teenagers, they immediately fell in love.
Now, the two sisters are sharing their love of Slavic traditions with the rest of the world via a film adaptation that’s won more than 25 international awards.
Julia Bui Ngoc is a director, dancer, and choreographer who teaches at the Warsaw Film School. She is also a martial artist who won the French kung-fu championship and now runs a combat fans school.
Mai Bui Ngoc is an architect and cinematographer. “She designs big buildings and is the person who is reinventing Warsaw,” her sister Julie says.
Together, the two are combining their fascination of Slavic culture with their multi-disciplinary artistic pursuits.
A search for identity
In high school, the two sisters read Adam Mickiewicz’s ‘The Water Nymph‘ (Świtezianka). This was their first encounter with the Polish national bard and Polish romanticism. Immediately, they were enamored with the vividness with which Mickiewicz described mythical creatures, including nymphs, apparitions, and ghosts.
It was this ballad, first published in the collection Ballads and Romances in 1822, as well as its symbolism and the legendary water nymphs living in Lake Świteź (in present-day Belarus), that inspired the sisters to look deeper. They were surprised that no one had brought the tale to film.
“What fascinated us is this Polish romanticism. In France we got to know French romanticism, which is very different,” says Julie, “In Polish romanticism you can very much feel this atmosphere, this longing.”
These differences made them question Polish history, and they discovered the historical past of the country that they now call home.
“We understood that at the time when Romanticism existed in Europe, Poland did not exist on the map of the world,” says Julie, adding that, at the time, “Poland was crying out for its existence in such a real, romantic way.”
For the two sisters, the discovery of Slavic culture was remarkably personal.
“[It] also affected us, because we didn’t quite know who we were either. Because our father is from Asia, our mother is from Europe, we grew up in the south of France, so the whole mix made us wonder where our identity was when we were looking for it, Julia explains.
When they started working on “The Water Nymph” they were enthralled by Mickiewicz’s means of showcasing the unknown. That sparked the sisters’ dive into Slavic mythology.
“Mickiewicz then, during the Romantic Era, dug up, unearthed old beliefs that were ceasing to exist, but had remained somewhere in the villages,” Julia says.
‘I will tell you a secret’
The sisters argue that Slavic mythology is under-represented and deserves greater acclaim.
“Slavic mythology, compared to other mythologies from Europe, it’s still so mysterious, there’s so little known about it, so little has been recorded that there’s some incredible mystery in it. It’s cool because you can explore it,” says Julia.
For them, this unexplored quality makes Slavic myths all the more interesting.
“There is a difference between ‘I’ll tell you something’ and ‘I’ll tell you a secret,'” says Mai, arguing that when something is unknown, people immediately want to learn more.
“We know about Norse identity, about Celtic identity, we know Greek mythology, but what about the Slavic one?” she asks, “This is the time, this is the moment when this Slavic identity, it really starts to break out.”
The struggle between light and darkness
In Europe and beyond, Poland is often associated with Catholicism and religious traditions.
But Mai and Julia dispute this viewpoint, arguing that many traditions in Poland now associated with the Catholic faith actually stem from Pre-Christian Slavic culture.
“It is very cool when you discover the original tradition of it all and how it has been distorted by history,” says Mai.
In order to dispel some of these myths, the pair have begun to research and rediscover these Polish traditions, which have their roots in old Slavic customs, and are presenting them to the world through art.
“In Poland, it is important to start the evening by sharing a wafer, and in the past, before Christian culture came along, it was bread that was shared,” explains Julia.
“Fire and light are also very important… we have this thing that there should always be candles on Christmas Eve,” she says.
In fact, they discovered that this goes back to Szczodre Gody, a Slavic pagan celebration of the Winter Solstice.
“It was a battle between light and darkness, where light wins,” adds Julia. Since the day starts to get longer again after the Solstice, light is seen as triumphant over the dark.
“Carolers, it also seems to us [in Poland – editor’s note] that this is a very Catholic tradition, while in fact it comes from earlier rituals,” Julia explains further.
“The carol singers had masks, they would go from house to house and sing or tell tales to give the feeling that it was going to be a better year and they would give fortune telling, they would give that good luck. All these elements that we still have in our Polish holidays today are elements drawn from even before the Christian tradition”.
For the director, a very important symbol in The Winter’s Tale is a girl holding a star, played by her niece.
Julia had the same strong need to depict tradition when she saw the carol singers. As the sisters explain, they used to embody mystical creatures who donned masks to come from another world into ours, and to give those on Earth a new beginning.
“What we do is always very well researched,” Mai says, “symbolism is important in everything we show, so no element is contrived, it’s always inspired by something that actually existed.”
Carol of the Bells
Over the last few years, the traditional Ukrainian song Shchedryk (known in English as “Carol of the Bells” has exploded in popularity. It is one of Mykola Leontovych’s best-known compositions. Shchedrivki, or winter Ukrainian ritual songs, were the inspiration for the piece.
Julia Bui encountered this piece of music a long time ago, during her time at the Gardzienice Theatre. “There was a certain Marianka Sadowska, a wonderful Ukrainian singer,” she says. Only later did she realize the English version of the song existed.
She noted that although the song is “very Christmassy,” it is not “related to the birth of Jesus Christ”.
“Szczerdyk, is a song that is sung on Szczodre Gody,” she adds, “It was written before the church.”
Now the piece is also the backdrop for their ‘Winter’s Tale’, and it is performed by the Academic Choir of the National Radio of Ukraine.
Mai Bui immediately adds that the song gained popularity after the outbreak of war in Ukraine.
School of female warriors
Julia is also the creator of the warrior combat fan school. She invented a dance herself and has been gathering what she calls “women warriors” around her for eighteen years.
“At the time, it was very important to me to create this space for women where we feel comfortable enough to express our emotions through our bodies,” she says, adding that “what was super important to me was to show these girls that we can be warriors and, while being warriors, not lose our femininity.”
“I created a dance that has martial arts hidden in it and I had girls coming to me who are warriors,” the choreographer says.
It is with these girls that the Bui sisters create their films.
“When we are working with Mai, we ask: hey girls, do you want to participate? And they say: yeah, we come and we fight!” Julia says.
Julia calls her sets a sandbox for adults.
“We come, we play, we dress up, we put on masks, we dance around the campfire and there’s really a real joy to the situation. If someone saw from the side, they would think: oh, some strange people are having a strange time,” she says.
Reclaiming the Slavs
Julia and Mai Bui have been awarded a grant from the Polish Ministry of Culture, which will fund a series of stories on the Slavic gods.
“That’s what’s most wonderful about all of this, that because there is so little information, our interpretations are very… ours. And we’re very much indicating that we’re inspired because we don’t know what it was really like,” Julia explains.
“We’re going to be presenting a character called Weles in January, we’re tasked with telling the story of him. What was he like? That’s what nobody knows, so we’re going to research. We do a lot of reading and then it comes out of us.”
The director looks forward to every encounter with Slavic mythology. “It’s amazing, it’s so mystical, so magical, it’s really something cultural that we have in Poland that still exists today. It would be a pity if it ceased to exist, it’s so Polish, Polish – from these lands.”
