With the slogan of ‘Feels Like Home’ the 8th Northern Lights Nordic/Baltic Film Festival will kick off November 20, running to November 30.
Initially devised to introduce the Belarusian cinema lovers to the best and newest non-fiction and fiction from the five Nordic states and European and three Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia), and then Greenland and the Faroe Islands, there will again be no physical festival presence in Belarus in 2022 given the country’s dire political situation, and the government’s oppressive response to any form of protest or criticism.
Instead, Belarusian audiences can gain access to films online, while off-line screening and activities will be hosted in Tallinn and Vilnius, the capitals of neighbouring Estonia and Lithuania. These are two very cineaste cities that also host very active and vocal Belarusian diasporae.
Most significantly within the festival’s short history, a local competition was introduced in 2020, “to support the further development of the Belarusian film industry and empowering Belarusian creators.”
For anybody who needs reminding, a rigged election in 2020 led to mass protests across Belarus. Independent filmmakers (such as Aliaksei Paluyan in his astonishing doc Courage) responded to the dire political situation by highlighting the violence and moral bankruptcy of the political regime in the country, as well as the bravery of the protesters. It is for this reason that the festival can no longer be staged in the Belarusian capital of Minsk, and other cities around the country. And for many Belarusian artists in exile across Europe, an immediate return home is out of the question.
“This is extremely dangerous for myself,” says festival head Chajkouskaya, who was singled out last year on State television as a ‘‘the organizer of a festival that shows films that teach how to fight the regime’,’ she says. “I cannot go back to Belarus because I will be put in jail. I’m not joking. I’m not exaggerating. Part of my team is still in Minsk and I don’t want to put them in danger. Most likely if we screen the films physically offline anywhere in Minsk the KGB will come and arrest everyone and put everyone in jail for we don’t know how long.”
“So we cannot put ourselves and first and foremost our audience in danger like that,” Chajkouskaya continues. “And most likely because the festival has already been highlighted as [having] a kind strong political position…so the physical presence for the time being is completely impossible because this situation is extremely dangerous.”
But the focus in Belarusian cinema and its practitioners remains at the heart of the festival programme. The wide-ranging 13-film Belarusian Competition will be presented in-part offline and in greater part online, “documentarily and poetically portraying the events of August 2020” and offering up films “that sustain the discussion about gender equality and female leadership in Belarus.” The festival narrative further underlines the competition’s “cinematic statements, in which the authors seek the creative ways to express their opinions; and, of course, the stories of Belarusians, who were forced to flee their homes and are searching for the new ones in other cities.”
Some of the films from the competition programme cannot be shown online in Belarus because of security reasons. “It’s really dangerous for the creators of the films or for the protagonists of the films because special forces, the KGB in Belarus, can also connect and watch the films. So we are not showing them in Belarus, but instead we’re showing them (in-person) in Talinn and Vilnius.
The Tallinn offline films are When Flowers Are Not Silent by Andrei Kutsila (Poland/2021) and Mara by Sasha Kulak (France/United Kingdom, 2021). Meanwhile the Vilnius offline films are Borderline. Where The World Ends by Anna Savchenko (Belgium/Lithuania, 2021) and the 10-minute animation Shirey Mara by Nata Korneyeva (Belarus, 2021).
Chajkouskaya further emphasises the need to promote her country’s cinematic output. “We don’t have a lot of [financial] resources to dedicate to the Belarusian film industry. But at least we can do it through talking about it, showing it, and also giving the opportunity to audiences and an international jury to watch and decide on the Belarusian films.”
“We kind of believe that through watching Belarusian films we will gain more people who are interested and loyal towards Belarusian cinema and will help us to advocate for Belarusian cinema in the future,” she adds.
Elsewhere across the 8th festival Northern Lights Nordic/Baltic Film Festival is an 11-film International Programme dedicated to the concept to home – both in the literal and in the metaphorical senses. “Hometown streets and house interiors, friendships and parental memories, the struggle for freedom of one’s home and the right to live comfortably in it: all that and more appears in feature films and documentaries from the Nordic and Baltic countries.”
The Ukraine mon amour programme comprises three Ukrainian films that were made in co-production with Nordic and Baltic countries. These are This Rain Will Never Stop by Alina Gorlova (Ukraine, Latvia, Germany, Qatar, 2020); Outside by Olha Zhurba (Ukraine, Denmark, Netherlands, 2022) and A House Made of Splinters by Simon Lereng Wilmont (Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Ukraine, 2022).
“This program is dedicated to Ukraine’s courageous fight against Russian aggression and stands as an homage to freedom and a gesture of support to our colleagues and friends in film from Ukraine,” the festival underlines.
