In Letters from the Silenced Country, exiled Belarusian director Andrei Kutsila, now living in Poland, combines archives, found footage and animation, as well as testimonies derived from letters written behind prison walls, to deliver a searing indictment of the regime that governs the country was forced to leave. “I only hope that this film will offer the international audience this opportunity to understand better our society, what is going on now, in my country.”
Since 2020, over 65,000 politically-motivated arrests and detentions have been recorded in Belarus, we are told in the film, which is selected Out of Competition at Venice 2026. Many of these arrests have led to long-term prison sentences during which, the UN has documented, countless prisoners have been subjected to systematic torture. On release, many of these former inmates have been forcibly expelled from the country, with neither documents nor belongings.
The four stories presented in the film offer four distinct perspectives on the experience of living in Belarus under Lukashenko. A dad, who is given the false name of Ales, is forced to live in hiding, constantly evading surveillance to avoid arrest and the horrendous prospect of being separated from his daughter. “How is it to live under occupation? You live each day like it’s your last,” he stresses in the film. “Fear becomes physical, it weighs down on you.”
A former criminal investigator (Andrei) comes to understand the corrupt system in which he is operating and flees Belarus, only to confront repeated interrogations in exile in Poland, along with his growing sense of isolation and helplessness.
Kasia, a young student imprisoned for taking part in protests, turns to drawing as a way to survive—holding on to her identity and giving expression to what cannot be spoken openly. Her bold and beautiful drawings, presented in stark monochrome, are animated in the film and depict her incarceration.
The story of fifty-year-old Vitold is perhaps the most painful to watch, told in letters to home and via CC footage, which was freely distributed online by the authorities, and which shows him in his cell after his torture and moments immediately before his consequent death.
“I was forced to leave Belarus five years ago, after the protests against the falsification of the presidential elections were violently suppressed,” Kutsila notes. “I know the stories of those imprisoned by the regime first-hand. My sister was one of them— she was arrested, and she still cannot forget the screams of people being tortured every night. This is not a story of the past. The repression continues. Almost every day, someone is arrested, someone is sentenced — often without public knowledge. Through my film, I want to give voice to those who cannot speak – Belarusians living in a silenced country.”
The exiled director further explains to BDE his decision to part-tell the story using animation. “When I decided that I wanted Kasia to be a protagonist, I connected with her friends in Belarus, because she was in prison and at this time her friends were really scared to connect with me, so they only sent me screenshots or photos of her letters,” he says.
It was essential therefore, for reasons of safety, that Kasia would only be part of the production after her release from prison, at which point Kutsila visited her. She offered him her letters and her drawings, and much of the text contained within these letters was visualised and rendered into animation form by illustrators, imitating her highly distinctive and expressive drawing style. Kasia now lives in the Czech Republic.
Of course, we also wanted to mix animation with live action, and that creates something special,” the director says. “When, for example, her relatives come to her in prison, when she describes it, it’s live action, real. When she thinks about freedom, then animation describes this freedom.”
Kutsila describes the medium of documentary as the “best way” to communicate both the repression and sense of desolation felt by exiles and those left at home, whether incarcerated or part of the struggle. “Of course, everybody can read information on the internet, from the news, but it’s something absolutely different when you devote 1 hour and 15 minutes, and then you really get to feel everything.”
Most people beyond the region are not aware of the level of iniquity within Belarus, he believes. “They know that Lukashenko, of course, was a participant, and allowed Russia to use our territory for the full-scale invasion in Ukraine. Of course, everybody knows Belarus in this context,” he says. “But sometimes in this context, we forget about average people and about the scale of violence, because it’s not obvious now. It’s not visible now. Because the regime works in such a way that you don’t have an opportunity to see it, because there’s no independent media, no human rights organisations inside [the country] and so on.”
“It’s like a real silent country, but too many things [happen] to so many lives, and there’s too much pain,” he adds. “Nobody knows about you, everybody forgets. When you go like a tourist now to Belarus, maybe you will not see the problem: clean streets, bars, restaurants, good food and dancing and concerts, and celebration of different events. So life looks good…if you are not informed. This documentary is an attempt to show the international audience what is going on under the coverage.”
Kutsila is very thankful for the support he has received from Poland and its documentary industry. “Poland was part of the socialist influence. They know the situation first-hand. They fought for their freedom, and got it,” he reminds BDE.
“They are one of the closest nations, like Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine, so they understand our situation, and try to help. They supported our production, and I’m grateful for this support, because without them, it was not possible to make this movie, not only financially, but artistically,” he says, citing the mentor support he received from acclaimed director, cinematographer and producer Jacek Bławut, and producer Miroslaw Dembinski, both professors at Lodz Film School.
“When I was forced to leave the country, they started to support me in this way in making this movie, over five years, and it was good. I felt their support from the beginning to the end.”
