AN email popped into the Review HQ this week, direct from the makers of film called My Friend The Polish Girl.

They set out to explain the background to their feature, a fictional story about a film-maker, Katie, who finds a subject for a documentary that tells of life in London in the shape of Alicia (Aneta Piotrowska, pictured), a 32-year-old woman from Poland who lives just off Edgware Road.

She is set to become the subject of a film whose narrative is not quite defined when we join them, but will become so as the lead reveals more about herself. It is a character study of life in London during Brexit limbo, and made so well it appears to have confused a number of critics as to what exactly the film is.

“I know this film is something very different,” says co-writer and director Ewa Banaszkiewicz.

“It looks and feels like a documentary but is purely fictional. We were horrified to see it referred to as a ‘docudrama’. Additionally, audiences often somehow see the lead actress as a vulnerable non-actor: she is, in fact, a CBeebies presenter and professional actress, who simply pulled off a convincing performance.

My Friend the Polish Girl even mistakenly qualified as a documentary for the DMZ FF in South Korea.”