The Queen and the Smokehouse

During the summer Łeba is one of the most popular resort towns in Poland, welcoming hundreds of thousands of visitors. At the centre of the film is Miecia – proprietor of Łeba’s legendary fish smokehouse, whom the locals refer to as Queen of the town. Over the course of more than 40 years of working, she has become an integral part of the town’s landscape. Always with cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth, Miecia jokes that she has smoked herself along with the fish. The film lets us hear the murmur of the sea and see the spirit of the Baltic shore that is slowly fading under the shiny façade of tourism. The daily work takes on a poetic ritual significance wherein the smokehouse becomes a smoke-filled sanctuary, symbolizing endurance and love of life. The director finds beauty in the seemingly mundane: work calloused hands and a gaze that simultaneously shows stubbornness and fragility. Miecia’s daily life flows like a carousel in the beachside amusement park – at times energetic and noisy, and also meditative and subdued. Facing health problems, she is forced to go on vacation for the first time in her life and learn to live not just for work, but also for herself. A humorous and deeply moving story, it is especially dangerous for viewers who like fish.

Łeba was first mentioned in historical sources in 1268 as a fishing settlement. During WWII, the German Army conducted missile tests in its territory. Today the town has some 3,000 inhabitants and is situated near the Słowiński Biosphere Reserve, which is listed in the UNESCO list of protected areas and encompasses one of the largest and most active shifting sand dune systems of the Baltic Sea area.