Written and directed by Pawel Pawlikowski, inspired by his own parents' exceptional love story, it was the 2019 Academy Awards Nominee for Best Director, Best Cinematographer and Best Foreign Language Film.

Pianist and middle-aged musical director Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) views the world as uninspiring, repressive and lifeless due to the Stalinist regime's oppression.

He is commissioned by the Soviet state to form a musical ensemble to help rekindle national pride. He toes the official party line but secretly dreams of defection and artistic autonomy.

Whilst touring the villages in search of talent Wiktor meets the beautiful Zula (Joanna Kulig), a fiery and charismatic singer with a past: an abusive father and a criminal record. Wiktor is captivated by Zula's free-spirit and innate talent.

What commences as flirtation soon develops into a fervent - though highly turbulent - passionate romance which continues even after Wiktor learns that Zula has been informing on him to the state authorities.

When a performance in Berlin offers the pair an opportunity for escape to the West, Wiktor attempts to persuade Zula to flee with him.

Wiktor fails to understand why Zula would wish to stay. In turn, Zula believes that Wiktor would not flee and leave her behind.

Eventually, a last-minute decision sees Wiktor defect to France while Zula chooses to stay behind. They become stranded on either side of the Iron Curtain.

Spanning 15 years across Warsaw, Berlin, Paris and Yugoslavia, the film follows the lovers, sometimes reunited but more often apart.

Wiktor and Zula are damaged souls who yearn to be together even when events conspire against them. They are separated by ideologies, geography and politics.

But most of all they are separated by their individual conflicting personalities: Wiktor is introspective and quiet; Zula is tempestuous and fiery.

Their stormy relationship plays as a metaphor as to what is unfolding in turbulent Eastern Europe.

Cold War is an almost perfect, mesmerising movie. Inspiringly directed; sublimely acted by two charismatic central characters; and a music score that touches the soul.

These elements coalesce to create a sensuously beautiful film.

Cold War meticulously recreates the era with virtuosic black-and-white cinematography. The soundtrack judiciously signifies the passage of time and shifting relationships. Cold War is, however, much more than a powerful, tortuous and doomed love story.