The best things that happened in Belarusian cinema in a year – bright fiction, animation and documentaries – can be seen on the big screen. It will be possible to get acquainted with the program of the National Competition of the 27th Minsk International Film Festival “Listapad” and discuss films with their creators from December 17 to 23 at the Silver Screen Galileo cinema.
Two evenings dedicated to the deceased filmmakers will be held within the framework of Belarusian Cinema Festival. On May 14, 2020, director Lyubov Zemtsova, producer Vladimir Mikhailovsky and sound engineer Maksim Gavrilenko, authors of the documentary project “Unknown Belarus”, while returning from the filming of another plot had an accident on the Minsk-Gomel highway.
On December 17, at 19:00, an evening dedicated to the sound engineer Maxim Gavrilenko will take place. He has more than 20 film projects on his account, some of which will be shown on the big screen again that day: “Under the Crowns of Trees” (dir. Ignat Kachan), “From a great height” (dir. Vlad Senkova), “Victims” (dir. Anton Lyumo), “Beach / Forest / Tambour” (directed by Kirill Galitsky and Svetlana Kozlovskaya, the best Belarusian feature film of the Listapad-2019 festival) and “The Last Like to Doctor Sperling (directed by Denis Zosik).
On 18th December at 18:00 two films about life away from the capital will be presented. Ales Lapo’s short film “All events according to the plan” tells about the young director of the rural House of Culture in the town Pobolovo, Rogachevsky district. Trying to find new aspects of the activity of the cultural centre in the village, he plans to create a computer class for the elderly and faces many difficulties related to the psychology and age of the villagers.
The next film, which will be presented on the same day, is “Invisible Paradise” by Daria Yurkevich, a picture about the life of three sisters in “paradise” not far from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. At 20:00 an experimental autobiographical documentary horror by Nikita Lavretsky will be shown. This film is named after him and aggressively edited from a low-fi video, where the main character appears between the ages of 0 and 16. Nikita Lavretsky captured the cycle of everyday violence, passion for art and existential anxiety.
On 19th December at 17:00 the thriller “Forbidden Zone” by Mitriy Semyonov-Aleinikov will be presented. The focus is on the transformation of public consciousness and human relations in the late 1980s in the exclusion zone that arose after the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. At 20:00 – a documentary film “Living” by Andrey Knyazevich about a solitary life in a treatment centre for patients with mental illnesses will be shown. After that – a short motion picture “I need hugs…” by Andrey Kutilo: about self-sacrifice, the mighty power of imagination and poetry in the godforsaken village of the endless Belarusian province.
On 20th December at 18:00 Viktor Aslyuk’s short motion film “Epitaph” will be presented. This film is about the meeting place of living and dead people, where they look at each other and even talk. After that – a documentary film by Vladimir Lutsky “Ancestors Code”: a film-study of the roots of the Belarusian and Ukrainian peoples, the search for their identity through the study of the melody of the Slavic ethnographic heritage.
On 21st December at 19:00 Anastasia Miroshnichenko’s film “Darkness Outside” will be presented. This film allows you to look into the wonderful world and change the perception of human capabilities. For a team of blind football players from Belarus, participation in the qualifying round of the European Championship is the only chance to work their way out of the darkness and come into the spotlight. But there are serious obstacles in the path of athletes, and only mutual support and inner light help them move towards the goal.
On 22nd December at 19:00 the screening of three films is planned. The first one is the animation work by Ivan Gopienko “The Kingdom of Stars”. It is a story of distorted ideas, forgiveness and humanity, our quest to become better. This film has won awards in Europe, Canada and the United States. After that the creative experiment of Sasha Kulak and Daria Golova “Where desires live” will be shown. The last screening will be “Dima” by Dima Dedka. His hero-thief wonders if he lived his life honestly. And did he live his own life?
The evening dedicated to the creative works of Lyubov Zemtsova and Vladimir Mikhailovsky will be held on December 23 at 19:00. Director, screenwriter and cameraman Lyubov Zemtsova made documentaries, the main theme of which was love – this determined her method in cinema and the principle of her relationship to the world. The director and producer of the documentary film “Unknown Belarus” Vladimir Mikhailovsky collaborated with Lyubov in various film projects. One of them – “The Place of Love” – will be shown this evening. In addition, a new film by Lyubov “Free People” will be presented, this film is about the inhabitants of the village of Nizhnie Zhary, Gomel region, who are fighting for the right to stay in their homeland.
The possibility to watch Belarusian cinema on the big screen is a great opportunity to celebrate the 96th anniversary of Belarusian cinema, which is traditionally celebrated on 17th December.
The organizer of the festival of Belarusian cinema is Visual and Performing Arts Centre “ART Corporation”.
We advise you to observe safety measures and make the visit to the cinema not only pleasant, but also safe: use masks and other protective means. The social distance will be respected between the spectators.
Follow the news about the next screenings on the site artcorporation.by, as well as on Facebook, Instagram, VK.