Local tensions simmer amid a potato salad contest at the Czech-Polish border

Located in Bogatynia, on Poland’s southwestern border with the Czech Republic and Germany, the Turów coal mine and the adjacent Turów Power Station are responsible for thousands of local jobs and provide 5 to 7 per cent of Poland’s energy. Over the border, however, the mine is considered a catastrophe, responsible for a host of environmental issues, particularly the depletion of local groundwater.

In the short documentary Everything’s Fine, Potatoes in Line, these tensions come to something of a boiling point when Teresa Kruszyńska, a Polish woman who works at the plant with her family, decides to take the fight to a Czech potato salad contest. In his unique portrait at the nexus of food, community and local politics, the Polish director Piotr Jasiński captures the heated – and then cooled – culinary action in the Czech village of Heřmanice, as locals from both sides bicker, sing, compete and connect over the subtleties of the beloved local dish.