Based on an old humorous Belarusian song. A peasant hired by a lord receives his well-deserved pay: for the first summer — a hen with chicks, for the second — a duck, for the third — a goose, for the fourth — a turkey, for the fifth — a calf, for the sixth — a ram, and for the seventh — a beautiful girl. But the gifts received from the lord's hands do not only bring joy: the girl got drunk and fell off the stove, and the ram broke the lord's legs.
A film about dreams and ambitions in the Belarus through the eyes of the younger generation. An insight into the recent history of Belarus and the growing movement for change in 'Europe's last dictatorship'.
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.
n 2003, Studio Tatyana was shut down by the Lukashenka administration, but the filmmakers' work continued: this is the studio's final manifesto, completed after the closure using the archival material that managed to escape confiscation. Investigative and unsettling, the film documents the rise of the dictator and the political repression – including political assassinations – from the perspective of Russian and Belarusian politicians and citizens attempting to resist.
Grand Duke Algerd sees his beloved son Jogaila as his successor. His brother, Samogitian Prince Kęstutis, also has six sons, including his beloved Vytautas, but he swears an oath to his brother that Jogaila will become the Grand Duke. And so it happened. Jogaila inherited a powerful state that stretched from the Baltic to the Black Sea. However, his own eleven brothers and six sons of Kęstutis do not promise a peaceful life. Jogaila decides to strike first.
A bitter twist of fate: during the drawing of demarcation lines between the Soviet Republics in 1939 nobody dared remove Stalin’s pipe from the map, consequently the borders were drawn around it. It was thus that the Belarusian village of Narvilishky ended up being allocated to Lithuania. At the time nobody foresaw the implications of this decision.
Vasil Granouski is 58. He's living in a village, where he leads a local choir. It consists of only elderly performers. The harmonic Vasil plays is also old, and it lacks a couple of keys. His car, in which he drivers the singers around, is faulty and doesn't always start.
On the day of the summer solstice, Belarus celebrates Kupalle, an ancient feast of the Nature’s high noon. To gain the power of four elements and become a new sorceress, Kupalinka has to face her own fears.
The woodcarver Mikalai Vasilevich Tarasiuk, a folk craftsman of Belarus, lived in Pruzhanshchyna. Near his house is a unique museum "Memories of the Fatherland", which has no analogues in the country. The self-taught master carves figurines from wood, decorates them with vines and straw, and arranges them into scenes from peasant life and everyday life. Specialists call this kind of activity instinctive art. That is, his creativity was formed naturally and such is free from the sphere of any professional influence. Through the personality of the hero and his wooden people, the film provides an opportunity to join the ancient way of life of Belarusians, which is gradually disappearing.
There are 36 days left before Russia's full-scale military invasion of Ukraine. On another Baptism of Christ holiday an ice hole was made in a pond in a bedroom suburb of Kyiv. Church bells are heard on the shore, people are undressing, standing in line... In this short observational film, closeups of people of different ages, lines of naked bodies and short conversations tell us about the fragility of life, the contradictions of human faith and the joy of existence.
Documentary short by Volha Dashuk.
Yanka Kupala, Belarusian poet and writer, is one of the spiritual symbols of Belarus. He did everything to make Belarusians feel like a full-fledged people. This is a figure that cannot be reduced by anything from the height of modernity. But the weight of recognition, inclusion in the ranks of the classics leads to petrification of the face. The authors of the film remove this petrification - verses sound throughout the film. Patriotic songs that sing the praises of Belarus and our people, awaken them from historical apathy and eternal longing. Mystics who whisper about the revival of the past that sleeps in the mound. And intimate and lyrical, filled with intimate beauty, eternal sensuality and lust for life.
Structured as a series of vignettes drawn in stark black and white, and to a soundtrack of mournful jazz, the film is a set of confessions anchored in fear, confusion, numbness, and anxiety.
Victor Asliuk's contrast of rural and urban life in Belarus examines the tangible differences between the young in the city and the elderly in the village and between modernity and tradition, interspersing modern images with archive material depicting the countryside as it used to be.
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.
Namskyi Velikden is the widespread Day of Dead in the Polesie. According to the old legends it is believed that souls of the dead ancestors come back to earth.
A creature takes up residence in a young man's room and feeds him but, at the same time, kills him. His life is falling apart, and he has no choice but to fight to the death against this dependency.
Minimal stories in a Belarusian village apparently indifferent to the popular uprisings in Minsk. The young director, who has left the country, defines them as 'choreographies of everyday life' in a film about 'rules that limit personal freedoms and at the same time ensure that the social organism works...'
