Sonja Orlewicz-Zakrzewska ‘s Polish debut feature Exotic just landed international distribution at Cannes. A filmmaker’s personal obsession with pole dancing became something far more profound.
Some films begin with a script. Some begin with a grant. Exotic began with a filmmaker who couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d found inside a Polish pole dancing camp — and couldn’t leave until she understood why.
Sonja Orlewicz-Zakrzewska is a director, visual artist, and photographer with a master’s degree from the Cinematography Department of the Łódź Film School. She is not someone who stumbled into this subject. She pursued it. “As soon as I discovered exotic pole dance, I got so invested that I went straight to Exo Stars Camp,” she said. “I was fascinated by the clash of the fragile, intimate universes we carried within us around the camp.”
That observation — fragile, intimate universes — is the film. Everything else is structure.
Exotic has been acquired for international sales by Berlin-based Pluto Film, with the deal announced at the Cannes Market. It is Orlewicz-Zakrzewska’s first feature.
What the Film Is Actually About
The premise follows a writer whose attempt to master pole dancing becomes something she didn’t anticipate. The discipline, the community, the permission to be seen in a new way — all of it conspires to help her understand herself more clearly than any of the contexts she came from.
Shot against the backdrop of Exo Stars Camp, a real Polish pole dancing school, the film doesn’t use the subculture as spectacle. It uses it as a container — a place where the rules of ordinary life don’t apply and something more honest becomes possible.
“It soon became clear that the camp itself was a perfect place to confront fears, leave one’s comfort zone and express oneself more than daily life ever allows,” Orlewicz-Zakrzewska said.
That’s not a filmmaker describing a setting. That’s a filmmaker describing what happened to her — and then building a film around it.
The Cast That Signals Something Real
The film stars Jaśmina Polak, Magdalena Koleśnik, Monika Frajczyk, and Bartosz Bielenia — a ensemble drawn from Poland’s most active generation of young actors.
Koleśnik is known internationally for her performance in Magnus von Horn’s Sweat — a film about a fitness influencer whose public visibility and private loneliness exist in direct proportion to each other, which turns out to be useful preparation for this material.
Polak and Frajczyk appeared together in Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border, the drama about activists helping migrants trapped between Poland and Belarus. Holland’s film was one of the most discussed European art house releases of its year.
“Performed by the finest of Poland’s young acting generation,” said producer Magdalena Sztorc, “it has become a film that dares to be different.”
Why This Debut Matters Beyond the Subject
Debut features built from personal obsession tend to have something that calculated productions don’t: a reason to exist that precedes the pitch. Orlewicz-Zakrzewska didn’t develop Exotic in a writers room. She went to the camp, got absorbed by what she found, and built a film from the inside out.
Pluto Film managing director Daniela Cölle framed it plainly: “The writer’s journey through pole dancing becomes a beautiful metaphor for breaking free from self-imposed limitations and embracing unexpected paths to self-discovery. Based on Sonja’s personal story, this debut speaks about universal human themes like connection, reinvention and belonging.”
Connection, reinvention, belonging. Those aren’t pole dancing themes. They’re the themes every person navigating their thirties — or forties, or any decade that requires reconstruction — already carries. The camp is just the place where they become visible.
Exotic doesn’t have a release date yet. Pluto Film is actively selling international rights at Cannes. Festivals are the likely first stop.
Remember this one. Debut features this specific don’t arrive often.
The advantage early attention offers
Sonja Orlewicz-Zakrzewska didn’t set out to make a film about pole dancing. She set out to understand something she couldn’t explain — and the film followed. That’s the oldest reason to make a movie, and it’s still the best one. Exotic is in the market now, finding its international audience. The people who find it first will understand why it matters before everyone else does. That’s the only advantage early attention ever offers. It’s worth taking.
Mini FAQ
What is Exotic and who directed it? Exotic is the debut feature from Polish director Sonja Orlewicz-Zakrzewska, a visual artist and photographer trained at the Łódź Film School. The film follows a writer whose immersion in a real Polish pole dancing camp becomes a journey toward self-discovery. Berlin-based Pluto Film has acquired international sales rights, announced at the Cannes Market.
Who is in the cast of Exotic? The film stars Jaśmina Polak, Magdalena Koleśnik, Monika Frajczyk, and Bartosz Bielenia. Koleśnik is known internationally for Sweat; Polak and Frajczyk previously appeared together in Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border.
Where can I watch Exotic? No release date has been set. Pluto Film is handling international sales from the Cannes Market. Festival screenings are the likely first opportunity for audiences to see the film.
