PL
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.
Nov 2022
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.
Dec 2023
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.
Nov 2023
Alisa is a 26-year-old student at the film academy in Kyiv. Her life is pretty normal until the day that President Viktor Yanukovych refuses to sign the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. Suddenly, everything changes: protests erupt in the capital, with the inhabitants demanding the president’s resignation.
Nov 2015
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.
May 2016
Two men, a Finn and a Belarusian live alone, on a lake's island.
Jan 2009
On the night of August 13-14, the authorities started a mass release of protesters against rigged presidential elections from prisons on Akrestsina street in Minsk and Zhodzina. All these days hundreds of relatives waited, and some continue to wait under the walls of the detention facility for their children, wives, husbands, brothers, sisters, parents and friends. Detainees come out of prisons and tell about the violence and abuse which they experienced. Information about this is instantly spread on the Internet. People already know the truth. Film director Andrey Kutsila will depict not the stories of torture victims themselves, but their relatives. Under the walls of the prison on Akrestsina street, they are in some emotional state of uncertainty, confusion and hope. The camera will “pick up” individual faces from the crowd and supposedly overhear conversations of Belarusians, filled with pain, anger and despair.
Aug 2020
Minsk. December 19th 2010. After the Belarus government blatantly hijacked the results of the presidential election, tens of thousands of Belarusians came to the streets in a peaceful protest. Tired of a ubiquitous system of lies, these demonstrators set their sights on truth and freedom.
Jun 2012
Due to the lack of places in Belarusian prisons, an OMON employee has to take in 3 political prisoners for 2 weeks.
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...
Oct 2015
Can one tear oneself from hearth and home, even if it is very boring and lonely there? Andrei, a small man in a small place, has spent 15 years of his life working in a community club. But today the large hall is empty; from time to time children come in here to sing. Meanwhile real Belarusian culture with its authentic singing conceals itself far from the state institution in a small local country house. Every now and then Andrei calls on here. Nevertheless he tries hard to revive virtually dead cultural center, his only place and reason for existence.
A young Belarusian artist leaves her husband behind in Minsk to visit her friend, the elderly painter Andrzej Strumillo, in his idyllic manor house in Poland. It’s a fairy-tale place, surrounded by marshland and a river. There are horses, for which the two artists share a passion, as well as dogs. It has been two years since her last visit. For her, the trip offers a welcome diversion from city life; for him, it’s a break from a lonely existence marked by old age: a curved spine, painful knees. “It’s sad life’s so short,” he says.
Nov 2018
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.
May 2020
"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.
Apr 2014
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.
May 2025
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 .
Jul 2022
Documentary short by Volha Dashuk.
Dec 2016
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.
Mar 2023
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?
Nov 2017
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.
Oct 2021