Wika!

84-year-old Vika is a true star of Warsaw nightclubs. As a charismatic and colorful DJ surrounding herself with young people she seems unstoppable and keeps repeating that age is just a number. But as Vika’s health starts to deteriorate she has to come to terms with the passing of time, finding purpose in bringing joy to other seniors – just as lonely as she is. Told with staged musical parts Vika! is a bitter-sweet portrait of a woman who has to face aging, yet celebrating life till the very end.

"The oldest Polish DJ, Virginia Szmyt, who is known to dance-party-goers as Vika, will be eighty-five years old this year. She manages to make crowds dance and actively speaks out in public against the stereotypes associated with old age. Behind the door of her apartment, however, she is a lonely widow with tragic memories of World War II and severed ties with her family. This multi-layered, emotional portrait of an indomitable life force looks with tender melancholy into Vika's quest to live fully in the here and now despite the layers of societal norms. The experience of the present moment is all the more powerful in regard to the jagged map of her personal history and her intense awareness of her own finitude.
"What a person needs most in life is tenderness, which, once a loved one dies, he’ll never receive.""
(Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival)