Blockbuster feature film on modern mystic is ‘an extraordinary story of an ordinary woman’

Approximately 160,000 people in Poland attended the film Mistyczka (The Mystic) during its first two weeks in theaters. The production, which opened on Sept. 11, tells the story of Alicja Lenczewska, a lay Catholic and teacher from Szczecin who became a mystic after a conversion influenced by her brother.

Written and directed by Jan Sobierajski and starring Dorota Chotecka-Pazura, the film follows Lenczewska's spiritual life and her 900 pages of journals documenting interior conversations with Jesus. Sobierajski said the production took three years to complete and required meetings with people who knew Lenczewska personally to build her character.

The film's release coincides with a Polish archdiocese beginning a broad examination of Lenczewska's life and writings.