RIDM 2025: Letters from Wolf Street | Interview with Arjun Talwar & Bigna Tomschin

In tune with the essence of the Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM), built around encounters, the RIDM opened their 28th edition with the feature film Letters from Wolf Street—a documentary rooted in contemporary Poland, yet resonant far beyond its setting thanks to its universal themes. Debuted at the 2025 Berlinale, the film features its director, Arjun Talwar, an Indian immigrant in Poland who is still trying to weave connections beyond prejudice, and beyond the difficulty of forming bonds in an urban environment—especially on the Warsaw street where he lives, named Wolf Street.

Montréal’s Monument-National was packed to the brim to warmly welcome this tender, light, and deeply human film. “It was overwhelming,” the filmmaker confides. He adds, “We haven’t had so many screenings of that scale.”

Talwar’s partner and the film’s editor, Bigna Tomschin—also present at the festival—rejoices in the trajectory of their intimate yet universal work: “It was such a small project, in a sense, and when we got to Berlin, it became something that so many people could relate to,” she explains.

“We tried to make the themes go beyond immigration, to something more general about feeling like an outsider,” Talwar notes. In the documentary, he reaches out to the people who, like him, live on Wolf Street—people who know each other without quite knowing each other, who cross paths, observe one another, yet rarely connect.

This attempt to understand others and forge connections inevitably echoes Agnès Varda’s Daguerréotypes (1975). “We were very aware of Agnès Varda, and we thought about her a lot—we’re fans,” Tomschin explains, referring to the idea of portraying the “story of a street.” She admits, however, that it was especially the warmth of the interactions in The Gleaners and I (2000) that inspired them. “We were trying to see how she manages to be so charming and connect so many themes,” Talwar admires, while Tomschin is most struck by Varda’s curiosity toward others.

In Letters from Wolf Street, Talwar embodies a character who sets out to meet others—a facilitator of human connection and solidarity. A character derived from his own personality, but necessarily shaped to best serve the film’s message. He elaborates: “In the film, I’m a very optimistic person, and I do have more pessimistic sides that maybe aren’t as filmically interesting. […] Let’s say it’s a reduction of my personality into a very minimal form, because there are many aspects that would just be too complicated.” Tomschin adds: “The film seems personal, but it’s actually a very reduced version of Arjun,” noting that the audience learns little about his past—aside from the touching tribute to the friend with whom he first emigrated from India to Poland. “This character, in a way, was created during the editing, but already before, when Arjun was shooting.” An optimistic character—sometimes bordering on naïve—who genuinely seeks to interact with the world, to share, to understand people’s views of contemporary Poland and its attitudes toward immigrants.

It’s a rare and timely approach, as Tomschin points out: “The timing of the film is really right, because we’re again talking so much about immigration, but always about immigrants—and this film somehow turns the gaze around, and the immigrant looks at the other.”

From the encounters the filmmaker initiates arise unobtrusive, genuine exchanges marked by empathy and respect—qualities that define the film. Tomschin expands on these anonymes-turned-characters: “A lot of the characters see Arjun filming on the street with his camera and think it’s a small project, and they could never imagine it would end up on a big stage with hundreds of people watching.” And that is precisely the filmmaker’s intent: “Arjun wanted to show stories that are usually not featured on big screens, stories from outside the usual perspectives,” she says. “And everyone in the film is such a positive character—everyone has their struggles, but they’re all real heroes.” The film displays impeccable ethics and respect toward its characters, who give it so much—indeed, they are its very substance.

“Documentary is a very convoluted thing in terms of ethics,” Talwar reflects. “I chose people who also wanted to be part of the project, […] and we made sure not to present them in a victimized way, […] to give them pride, dignity.” His interactions with the characters—Wolf Street’s postman, a Syrian friend, the regulars at a local bar, or a Romani immigrant whose chance meeting leads to a wedding invitation—feel spontaneous and genuinely authentic. The filmmaker uses these moments purposefully, to articulate his own perspective on hostility toward immigrants in Poland and on the need to rebuild social ties to avoid sinking into the sad passions that define our era. “Just the fact that when you have many characters and you’re not filming one person for three years, but many, many people—it makes the ethics easier, because you’re not torturing anyone for an extended period of time,” he explains pragmatically. As Tomschin sums it up: “It was basically a collaborative community project.”

The film’s poetry lies in Talwar’s ability to seek out the light in everyone. “To look for the beauty in this everyday banality,” as the director puts it. In practice, “It was like that while filming, you know, because in the end it’s just a normal street.” He adds: “In the past, I’ve shot documentaries in exotic places, like many people do.” But by showing humanity and staying open to others, adventure appears right around the corner. Ultimately: “It was part of the filming—the cinematography and the whole process—to find these magical images in the everyday. And that’s also the idea behind the character: he’s looking for that.”

Bigna Tomschin sums up the message this way: “In a broader sense, we felt that in today’s cities we’re becoming so much more lonely, and at the same time so much more scared of others. […] And in this film, we felt that maybe on a neighborhood scale you can show a kind of community being created. […] And I think the whole film, in a way, is about approaching and overcoming the fictional boundaries we sometimes create.”

With these beautiful words, may the audience of RIDM 2025 let themselves be carried by the film’s tenderness and authenticity, and leave with a few fragments, a few interactions or characters that, if ever needed, renew our faith in the creation of bonds between one another.

The 28th edition of Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) is running on November 20-30, 2025 in Montreal, Canada.