Warsaw’s Hidden Cool, Mapped by Charli XCX and a Band of Filmmakers

Forget the guidebooks. The real Warsaw—the one with forest raves, late-night wine bars, and balconies where strangers become friends—has just been captured on film. "Erupcja," a new guerrilla-style movie directed by Pete Ohs and starring pop star Charli XCX, playwright Jeremy O. Harris, and Polish actress Lena Góra, doubles as an insider’s tour of the city’s most magnetic corners.

The film follows a British woman named Bethany (Charli XCX) who arrives in Warsaw with her boyfriend, only to have their trip derailed by an artist (O. Harris) and an old friend (Góra). As tensions rise—"erupcja" means eruption in Polish—the characters drift through a string of offbeat locations that Ohs discovered during a year he spent living and falling in love in the city. The result is less a traditional love story than a love letter to a place that, as O. Harris puts it, "takes a second to reveal its treasures."

For the cast and crew, exploring Warsaw meant embracing spontaneity. A morning bike ride for coffee could lead to an afternoon in an indie cinema, then a tram ride past brutalist architecture to a wine bar, and finally a sunrise conversation with strangers. O. Harris once followed word-of-mouth to a forest party 30 minutes outside the center, with Charli XCX in tow.

The film's locations read like a local's secret list: Relaks coffee shop, the vegan sushi spot Youmiko, the wine bar Bar Rascal, and the old-school Polish restaurant Gessler, where vodka shots are chased with champagne. There’s also the Palace of Culture, a towering Soviet-era building that now houses a cinema, a wine bar, and a coffee shop—what Ohs calls "the center of culture and art."

Góra, a Warsaw native, says the city has reclaimed its pre-war elegance. "We are back to our elegance again," she says. "It’s green, clean, and safe. People love to eat, read, drink wine, and talk about art and love until dawn." For anyone hoping to experience that pulse, the film offers a map. Just bring a bike, learn to say "dzień dobry," and always pay for the tram.