Belsat TV

Two men, a Finn and a Belarusian live alone, on a lake's island.

Another rigging of the presidential election in Belarus in 2020 led to massive civil resistance which the country had never experienced before. Brutal suppression of the peaceful protests resulted in more massive marches. Yet, the peaceful protests, having lasted for several months, did not achieve Alexander Lukashenko’s resignation from the president’s post he’s been holding for 27 years. Instead, political repressions in Belarus increased dramatically and became the largest in the history of Europe since the 1970s. The documentary focuses on the lives of Belarusian families who try to continue living and carry on despite being traumatised. Looking at their lives, we can see the pain and hope, feel the fear and determination of these people. An extraordinarily moving film from a Belarusian director living in Poland.

When Sasha turned 11, "it became dark around and it has been dark ever since." Many things in Sasha's life are surprising. Why is his work at the factory a great joy rather than a boring obligation? Why does he turn on the lights after sunset? He has been through a lot. Bullied and beaten in his childhood, Sasha was often very ill. Why does he never complain? It's a miracle he can hear at all. So he listens to the world around him, to what his fellow passengers on the bus talk about. Through these conversations about minor or important, private or global, fleeting and eternal things alike, Sasha gets to know people, as well as himself.

KGB officers present junior schoolchildren with a golden ticket granting a tour around the magical KGB building. There, kids are shown the supernatural working methods of the most important and patriotic agency in the country: non-contact fighting, blindfolded shooting, and telepathy. At the end of the excursion, the KGB employees give the most resilient students the opportunity to feel like real patriots and personally get a confession from the traitors to the country with the help of electric shocks.

Zoya works in a store. She gets a call from her distant son, but hears only gunshots, screams, and explosions. Zoya starts searching for her son, who may have died in the war, but everyone convinces her that there is no war.

Due to the lack of places in Belarusian prisons, an OMON employee has to take in 3 political prisoners for 2 weeks.

What will happen if the processes that are currently taking place in Belarus and with Belarusians do not stop and reach the point of absurdity? The processes of social disunity, the habit of everyday fear in some, and the impunity of others. The processes of internal migration and reinforcement of self-censorship, the reign of nonsense and meaninglessness. The process of destruction and simultaneous revival of the Belarusian language and culture. The processes of denigration of human dignity and creation of those guilty without the proof of their guilt. Processes of inflating militaristic sentiments and hatred of foreigners and dissenters. The process of Russia’s taking over Belarus and dragging it into a senseless war.

The film tells four personal stories of one Crimean Tatar family. Their story concentrates, as in a lens, the extensive experience of people living under occupation. The difficulties, which affect this family, are experienced by the larger community and evolve extreme emotions. The main motive of the film is not the regime and the occupation itself, but its consequences, how it affects the lives of ordinary people who simply want to live, to love and to have a family.

In the midst of revolution and civil war, a filmmaker sets out to find herself. From the barricades of Maidan Square, to the safety of a Parisian apartment, Alisa struggles with her love for boyfriend Stephane, her impartiality as a journalist and her duties as a proud Ukrainian. Treading the line between director and subject, will Alisa leave this conflict with her love and her life, intact?

In 1937, most members of the Belarusian intelligentsia, including poets, were shot dead in Minsk on a "legal" basis. A few years later, their names were rehabilitated. However, despite this, most of them are still forgotten. 80 years after the tragedy, the young screenwriter begins to collect a portrait of these poets, their life in the 20-30s of the last century. Who were these people? What were their quirks? What inspired them, what they dreamed of and missed the most?

An old woman lives in a remote village in Belarus. As the end of her live approaches, she starts to read the worn-out notebooks of her daughter. Together we go on a journey to the unknown world of a person who is abandoned and forgotten by everybody.

Druya is a small and old town. The most fascinating about it is not its history, not specific dates and names of people, but the atmosphere. Looking at the surviving walls and furnishings, the imagination itself depicts the history of this place. Sometimes in the empty half-abandoned architectural monuments one can feel the rumble of past epochs, the weight of centuries oversaturated with events.

In August 2020, people gathered on the steps of the Belarusian State Philharmonic in Minsk to protest against the fraudulent presidential election. Holding signs that read "Our voice has been stolen", they stood up to the violence by singing together. Although the authorities pacified this spontaneous gathering, musicians soon began to appear on protest marches in shopping centers and subways, each time inspiring people with songs about the dignity, courage, fate and faith of Belarusians. This is how one of the symbols of the Belarusian resistance movement - the "Free Choir" - was born .

The officials in one ministry have the very same dream about the president. During an urgent meeting, the officials discuss what they should do, since everything suggests that this nightmare will soon become a reality.

In the film, Ernst Tsitavets, a resident of Minsk, relives certain experiences and tells about his friend Lee Harvey Oswald, the person who is allegedly responsible for assassinating U.S. President John F. Kennedy in 1963. The documentary is set in the block of flats Nr 4 in Kamunistychnaya street, in the very apartment where the American ‘tourist’ lived after his arrival in Minsk. Ernst Tsitavets was then a medical student and loyal Komsomol member, who, however, secretly listened to the BBC. There they disputed on the standards of life is better in the West and in the USSR.

The film "Don't Be Afraid" tells about the struggle of the Belarusian people for fair elections. The fates of people who responded to the call of blogger Sergei Tikhonovsky and who took part in the 2020 presidential campaign are shown.

"Love in Belarus" is love through the prison bars for Nasta Palazhanka and Dzmitry Dashkevich . They met in the "Young Front" - illegal Democratic organization. After protests in December 2010, they were put in prison. After detention in a KGB pretrial center Nasta was sentenced to a year of probation, and Dmitry was thrown in jail almost for three years. During his detention Dzmitry’s mom died, and Nastya remained the sole support for his father. The young couple married in prison, and on August 28, 2013 the leader of the "Young Front " was released. The lovers wrote thousands of letters to each other from behind the bars. These letters tell us about the feelings of young Belarusians, who fell in love in the time of the dictatorship.

Documentary short by Volha Dashuk.

Portrait a girl who has been living in Poland for some time with her blind parents and four-legged friends. Although the family seems to be settling in well in their new country, actively participating in events organized by the Ukrainian community, they still long for their homeland.

Aliaksiej Ščadroŭ used to work as a paramedic in an ambulance emergency service in Belarus. His ambulance was often called to collect homeless people from the streets, but after a few kilometres the crew would throw them away. Once in prison, Aliaksiej found himself unwanted too. The time behind bars changed the former paramedic’s outlook on life. Following his release, Aliaksiej led a vagrant’s life and lived in church buildings. After that he settled in the Aliaksandraŭka village where he organised unofficial asylum —he started to admit poor, disabled people, take care of them, help them obtain reissued passports, and enable them to return to a normal way of life. Unfortunately, the local authorities have not been appreciative of Aliaksiej’s initiative...