'Heweliusz': Netflix Revisits Poland’s Most Tragic Ferry Disaster

heweliusz_rez_jan_holoubek_na_zdjeciu_borys_szyc_fot_robert_palka_netflix.jpg, default, A still from the series 'Heweliusz', directed by Jan Holoubek. Pictured: Borys Szyc. Photo by Robert Pałka / Netflix, 'Heweliusz': Netflix Revisits Poland’s Most Tragic Ferry Disaster

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Jan Holoubek's blockbuster is more than just a solid piece of good entertainment. In this Netflix series the story of the greatest maritime disaster in post-war Poland becomes a tale of the victims of the transformation and the brutal verdicts of history.

It was 5:12 a.m. on January 14, 1993, when the rail-truck ferry Jan Heweliusz, operating between Świnoujście and Ystad, capsized in the stormy winds. A few minutes earlier, Captain Andrzej Ułasiewicz had broadcast a 'Mayday! Mayday!' message, calling for help from all nearby vessels. He had 36 passengers and 29 crew members on board, all of whom found themselves in the water at a temperature of 2 degrees Celsius during a raging storm, force 12 on the Beaufort scale. Ułasiewicz didn't even try to save himself – he remained on the bridge until the end, trying to relay information to rescue units – German, Danish, and Polish. When the waters receded, he was named as the main culprit in the Heweliusz tragedy, whose story is now told in Jan Holoubek's series.

Heweliusz – A Story of Greed

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MF 'Jan Heweliusz' ferry, Świnoujście, 1992, photo: Jerzy Undro/PAP

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From its inception, the MF Jan Heweliusz was considered an exceptionally unlucky vessel. Launched in 1977 at the Norwegian Trosvik shipyard, it sailed under the Polish flag for the next 16 years, experiencing around 30 different breakdowns during that time. Its history of adventures was so rich that Swedish sailors dubbed it 'Jan Haverelius,' or 'Accident John.'

The Polish ferry capsized twice while in port (hence why one of the series' characters explicitly calls it 'a f...cking roly-poly toy'), its engines failed, and its ballast system malfunctioned. The Heweliusz also collided with a fishing boat.

The MF 'Jan Heweliusz' ferry disaster, January 14, 1993, photo: Leben/DPA/PAP

However two other failures proved crucial to the tragic events of January 14, 1993. The first was damage to the ferry a few days before the sinking. While docking at the Swedish port, the vessel struck the quay, bending the gate securing the ferry's entrance, allowing water to enter. The shipowners, Euroafrica company, a subsidiary of Polish Ocean Lines, were aware of the defect but decided not to suspend operation until it was fully repaired. The reason was simple – a vessel sitting in port wouldn't earn any money, and the company's management wouldn't allow it. The crew members themselves were supposed to carry out makeshift repairs, but without the proper equipment and time, they could only partially repair the damage.

The MF ferry 'Jan Heweliusz' tilting towards the quay in the port of Ystad, Sweden, 1982, photo: archive/PAP

The second of the ferry's structural defects proved even more significant and far-reaching. It involved a multi-ton concrete cover on one of the decks. In 1986, during a voyage, a refrigerated truck caught fire on the ferry, spreading to other vehicles and engulfing the vessel's superstructure on one of the upper decks. The ferry was then renovated at the Hamburg shipyard, and the damaged deck was poured with a layer of concrete. Immediately after the Heweliusz tragedy, attempts were made to argue that the poured concrete weighed 'only' 30 tons (a small amount compared to the vessel's total weight), and that the reconstruction concerned one of the lower decks. However, in reality, the ferry was loaded with more than twice that weight, and the renovation only affected one of the upper decks, significantly affecting the vessel's stability. Stability, which had already been far from ideal, chiefly due to the wide captain's cabin on the bridge, which, in hurricane-force winds, turned into a veritable sail. All of this meant the ferry was unable to cope with the severe storm that struck the ship that January night, claiming the lives of 20 sailors and all of the ferry's passengers.

The Secrets of Heweliusz

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Heweliusz | Official Trailer | Netflix

Who was to blame for the disaster? Could a damaged ferry door have contributed to the tragedy? How did the number of victims remain underreported for years, with one female passenger omitted? How did a seventeen-year-old girl end up on board the rail-transport ferry? How did some of the victims become mutilated? Why did German services attempt to conceal their ship's presence near the disaster, and Polish rescue helicopters were denied takeoff rights? How much truth was there in the rumors about illegal arms transport aboard the ferry? Finally, why did the authorities make Captain Andrzej Ułasiewicz a scapegoat?

The questions that researchers of the Heweliusz tragedy have been asking themselves for years resonate powerfully, yet at the same time, seemingly incidentally, in Jan Holoubek's series. Not as a theme in itself, but as a footnote to the story of the people grappling with the consequences of the disaster. Kasper Bajon's story skillfully transports us across several timelines and between characters examining Heweliusz's case from different perspectives. Guides through this world include a crew member (Konrad Eleryk) who survived the disaster, plagued by remorse; Captain Ułasiewicz's widow (Magdalena Różczka), who must defend his memory and care for her teenage daughter; and the truck driver's wife (Justyna Wasilewska), who lives in the same neighborhood and is left destitute after his death. Finally, there is Captain Piotr Binter (Michał Żurawski), a sailor and friend of Ułasiewicz. As a juror deciding the causes of the disaster, he must choose between loyalty to his deceased friend and his career, which is threatened by the pressures of a political and business alliance.

Together with these individuals, we enter a story in which the events leading up to the disaster intersect with the court proceedings. The story repeatedly takes us to the very heart of the tragic events – to the raging waters of the Baltic Sea, where a group of desperate people fight for survival.

Combining perspectives and stories, Jan Holoubek and Kasper Bajon create an unusual genre hybrid in which a disaster series meets a psychological drama about loss and guilt, as well as a courtroom drama about the pursuit of justice in a world where few people are interested in the truth.

Overboard of Transformation

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A still from the series Heweliusz, directed by Jan Holoubek, photo: Robert Pałka/Netflix

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Heweliusz impresses with its grandeur and filmmaking precision, combining intimate character portraits with a story about Poland during the transformation period – the country itself is one of the series' main protagonists. Seen through the eyes of Holoubek and Bajon, Poland in 1993 is a country of a new bewildered capitalism, with growing social stratification, galloping inflation, pervasive poverty, political and business semi-legal arrangements allowing for the acquisition of the assets of a fallen state, and above all, greed, which becomes the driving force.

Older viewers of Heweliusz will easily recognize artifacts of the early 1990s: cars with gaping holes from radios snatched by neighborhood thieves, pawn shops to which the more unfortunate neighbors must surrender their loudspeakers and VCRs, the begging 'Gypsies,' schoolchildren with military-style backpacks, and small businesses sprouting up all around.

Holoubek brings this entire hauntological imaginary to life on screen, yet at the same time manages to avoid the impression that he's introducing us to an artificially created, nostalgic museum of transformation. Instead of preying on our collective retrostalgia, the director harnesses it to tell a story about an individual's struggle against an unjust and inefficient system. This isn't the first time he's done this – he's told it in 25 Years of Innocence, the spy film Doppelgänger, The Double, and the TV series High Water and The Mire.

Still from the series 'Heweliusz' directed by Jan Holoubek, photo: Robert Pałka/Netflix

In Heweliusz, he once again examines the unequal struggle between an individual and a corrupt system built on passivity and opportunism, creating a story about Poland in the 1990s, where communism and its political mores had only seemingly ended, and social life was ruled by intertwined political and business cliques.

Although Holoubek's series works best as a sad postcard from the past, this doesn't mean that Netflix's superproduction fails as a cataclysmic drama. On the contrary – we haven't seen Polish series produced with such panache and meticulous care. One glance at the sea storm sequences is enough to know that Heweliusz is the most expensive series produced in Poland since 1989. The most expensive and the most impressively told one.

Photo from the set of the series 'Heweliusz' directed by Jan Holoubek, photo by Robert Pałka/Netflix

The crew prepared for the storm scenes for 10 months. The actors underwent extensive training under the supervision of divers and stuntmen, learning to descend to depths of six meters and accustoming themselves to working in extremely difficult conditions. The most impressive sequences were shot in Belgium, in a studio near Brussels with a large filming pool 15 meters deep and capable of holding 700 tons of water.

Thanks to a total of one kilometer of rain showers, the filmmakers were able to create artificial downpours and waves reaching up to three meters, and a replica of the captain's bridge, constructed by the set designers, was suspended from a special crane, where Borys Szyc played Captain Ułasiewicz. Add to this the sheer scale of the filmmaking undertaking: over 120 actors, 3,000 extras, and 70 locations, and you get a sense of the scale of the film, making even High Water, made by the same filmmakers, seem like a small-scale production.

The result of these investments and efforts by Jan Holoubek and his team is a series unlike any we've seen in Poland before. Exceptionally impressive, world-class, and yet thoroughly local. For Jan Holoubek and Kasper Bajon see the Heweliusz disaster not so much as a plot for a sensational piece and a pretext for impressive special effects, but as a starting point for a story about people fighting for values in a world where all values have been devalued, and about the socio-economic transformation of the 1990s, the effects of which can still be seen today.

Heweliusz, directed by Jan Holoubek. Screenplay by Kasper Bajon. Cinematography by Bartłomiej Kaczmarek. Production design by Marek Warszewski. Costumes: Weronika Orlińska. Cast: Michał Żurawski, Magdalena Różczka, Konrad Eleryk, Justyna Wasilewska, Borys Szyc, Piotr Rogucki, Dariusz Chojnacki, Michalina Łabacz, Andrzej Konopka, Joachim Lamża and others. Premiere: November 5, 2025.

Translated from Polish by Michał Pelczar

Language English