The days which I spent in the beautiful town of Sokolowsko were for me precious from many points of view. At the beginning I admit that it was not easy to get used to live faraway from the urban traffic and lights. After the first ten days, in which I supported (and received support from) my new colleagues, Paula and Andres, during the quarantine, I started to work in the offices of the Insitu Foundation.

While new hires arrived to this small town close too the border with Czech Republic, my friendship with my colleagues and supervisors got stronger, and this made easier the work together. I notably improved my language skills, not only in English. Unexpectedly, during the long walks that we made surrounded by a beautiful nature, Andres and Paula started to help me to improve my Spanish, and Dominika, my colleague from Warsaw, helped me to improve my Polish (that anyway remained basic). On the work side, I notably improved my IT skills, using Excel, Word and PowerPoint. It has been a privilege for me to work in Sokolowsko, because I could unit work with my passion for cinema, and more generally for art.

After having catalogued the books present in the film archive, I started to research about Kieslowski’s movies and about the link between the polish genius and Italy. I used websites as “Teche Rai” and “academia.edu”, as well as the online archives of the most important Italian newspapers to download documents that have been very precious for my research. I had in mind to realize another research related to the economic side of the Kieslowski cinema, but unfortunately I did not have enough time.

During my months in Sokolowsko, both my sending association and Active Women supported me continuously, answering to any queries I could have. As I specified before, my supervisor Zuzanna and Bozenna were friends further than colleagues. After work, being facilitated from the fact that Villa Rosa, the headquarter of Insitu Foundation, was also our home, we repeatedly had dinners together in which we could exchange opinions about work and about our vision of life. Unfortunately, the project finished before the scheduled time, but I will never forget my days in Villa Rosa and the sounds of the Sokolowsko’s nature.