Sixteen-year-old Krzysztof Dymiński, known as Chris to family and friends, went missing the morning of May 27, 2023. He was last spotted on CCTV on the Gdańsk Bridge over the Vistula River in Warsaw, Poland. His friends and family cling to the hope that he is still alive; a hope on full display in “Closure,” directed by Michał Marczak and premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.
The documentary shows Chris’s father, Daniel, using methods such as GPS tracking, body weight doubles, drones and infrared vision in his search. Within the first 15 minutes of the film, Daniel and his brother happen upon a body in the river. Coughing and gagging, his brother approaches the decomposing body to confirm its identity. It is not Chris, but an elderly person. Daniel holds his head in his hands as his brother makes a call to the river police to transport the body. Someone else’s family, not Daniel, gets closure.
Despite searching for Chris in the river, digging through sand, flotsam and litter, Daniel and his family refuse to think that he killed himself, as law enforcement inferred, as he was last seen on the Gdańsk Bridge. They believe he is out there, somewhere. Multiple sightings of Chris were reported, but investigators determined they were cases of mistaken identity.
Over dinner, the family discusses dreams, and how Chris speaks to them as they sleep.
“We search these dreams for clues of where to look next,” Daniel says. When asked by his family when he plans to discontinue his search for Chris, Daniel says the end of the year, despite telling his wife, Agnieszka, that he would stop in August.
Daniel marches along, desperately, in his search. Throughout the film, going from weeks to months to years after Chris’s disappearance, Daniel puts off each stage of grief. He looks into every hint, every tip, every sighting and every dream, pushing the search further and further, holding onto hope and praying for closure.
A familiar story for some in Utah
Like the Dymiński family in Poland, families in Utah are also searching for closure with their own missing family members. Organizations like Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives Utah, the Utah Department for Public Safety and the International Center For Unidentified and Missing Persons are at the forefront, raising awareness for missing, endangered and unidentified people.
Young people like Chris are especially vulnerable in both the United States and Europe, with an estimated 2,300 children reported missing every day in the U.S., according to Child Find of America.
By the end of “Closure,” on Chris’s 18th birthday, glimpses of closure start to emerge in Daniel Dymiński’s life. He raises a toast with his family and says he plans to limit his searches to once a month. Birds chirp in the distance, and he comments on how he wants to record their song.
“And what are you going to do with [the recording]?” Marczak asks.
“Listen to them,” Daniel replies.
“Just like that?” Marczak asks again. “Wow, what a beautiful idea.”
“I know,” Daniel says, genuinely smiling for the first time in a long time.
To stay updated on the Dyminski family’s search for Chris, visit dyminski.pl.
