1. Belarusian cinema regains its presence in the world...
2. ...and continues to lose its presence in Belarus.
3. But the mode of hope and promise is striking: something will happen soon (actually it's not a fact).

During these three months, Belarusian cinema on both sides of the border developed an unexpectedly rich activity, and a slight déjà vu arose, as if the action is taking place in 2019 (and this is about the fact that fundamentally new solutions for new challenges in our cinema did not appear).

February began with the announcement of the creation of the Belarusian Independent Film Academy — and soon it was presented at the Berlinale. A visit to the Berlinale was a turning point for our cinema every year. On the one hand, pride and the promise of great prospects when it came to independent filmmakers. On the other hand, there is indignation about the fact that the state does not care about representation at the festival. After a brief period of nervousness, everything returned to its place.

Having become in 2021 a symbolic promise of an alternative future "soon", the Berlinale played this role well this year. The presentation of the independent film academy – a beautiful symbolic step of separation from the banned co-aggressor state – once again promises that the scattered Belarusian cinema will have unimaginable prospects. As evidence, ten film projects were presented, which caused a little teacher's approval at the Berlinale, and in the film community — quiet questioning about the selection and the shindig format. Let's remember this combination: external approval and internal discord. We will have to live with it as before. The community is not in a hurry to become a unity yet, but is still fighting for loyalty.

Around the same time, the reconstructed "cinema concert hall" was also symbolically opened in Astraviec, and later officials with Natalla Kačanava at the head of a cheerful group visited the restored "Belarus" cinema in Stoŭbcy. And they reawakened the old staleness: the less actual cinema remains in cinemas, the more happily the officials remember that the most important, most loyal of the arts is just that.

As if in response, independent filmmakers presented an equally symbolic online platform of independent Belarusian cinema, Vodblisk. It has excellent chances to become an online ghetto of Belarusian cinema, because it arose out of a need that has been insoluble for years: Belarusian cinema is the cinema that everyone creates and no one can watch.

Vodblisk's gesture regarding the free annual subscription for the residents of Belarus is intended to testify to a symbolic stay in the homeland. While the Ministry of Culture purges the film distribution within the country, the online platform can fulfill its small mission "we are the real deal in the absence of alternatives", although obviously, its main task is to preserve the presence (and the illusion of unity) of independent filmmakers as such. Just create a place where they remain visible.

Regarding the purge: in the spring, the last bastion of the decentralized festival movement fell — the "Unfiltered Cinema" film festival. A couple of days before the start, it was cancelled with a phone call from the Ministry of Culture. Just like the "Listapad" film festival in November 2020.

Let's leave it to the voices over the phone to explain their decisions, because what is more important is that horizontal connections have long been working much better than vertical ones. And the screenings of "Unfiltered Cinema", even in the format of a film lecture, still took place in Homieĺ. At the time of writing this text, the screenings were also planned in Viciebsk. And in Minsk, they were cancelled with a new phone call. In Vilnius, they showed the whole small Belarusian programme — through which, let's assume, the festival in Minsk was cancelled.

The winner, by the way, is the same one as at last year's "Bulbamovie" festival — Juryj Siamaška's film "Trashhead". It testified that artisanal cinema and its viewers are still guided by conservative ideas about authorship — they prefer narrative, "artificial" cinema. That is, "with an idea", quite detached from reality, and sometimes completely escapist, with a clear "philosopher's edge". What's amusing and encouraging here is that for a few moments in this well-mannered film with well-mannered supernatural elements the shadow of Jan Švankmajer looms.

If we mention that a year ago, Belarusian filmmakers were panicking about death from cancellation, now we have to recognize that nothing terrible happened.

This year, probably for the first time since 2020, the festival distribution of Belarusian films seemed to be as saturated as it was before the split - and we should even cautiously note that it was more active than the diaspora distribution. Here is the film of Mara Tamkovič "On the air" which takes an award at the Polish film festival. Here's Rusłan Fiadotaŭ's "Away" winning in Tampere. Here is the premiere of his new doc "Rui" about a fisherman from Lisbon at the Swiss festival Visions du Réel. Here, Artdocfest also shows offline the fresh "A kite the size of a horse" by Saša Kułak, where the country of production is France, and the film "Belarus 23.34" by Taćciana Svirepa is shown online. Meanwhile in Korea, the animation "Prelude and Fugue" by Ihar Vołčak takes the prize, and Ihar, presumably, should be attributed to the opposite, "dependent" camp.

Here at GoEast in Wiesbaden they show a selection of old Belarusian cinema — including the rather inconspicuous "Orange Vests" by Juryj Chaščavacki and the iconic "Occupation. Mysteries" by Andrej Kudzinienka. (At the same time, his new series "Ten Lives of Miadźviedź" was seen so far only in Russia — if it was seen at all.)

In Wiesbaden there was also a rather myth-making discussion "Belarus — from the rise and fall of "Listapad" to the formation of the Belarusian Independent Film Academy", which in this formulation refers to the founding meeting of a certain new Belarusian cinema. Or at least to a new stage of the old one.

We also have the premieres of two films, one way or another related to the protests of 2020: "Motherland" by Hanna Badziaka and Alaksandr Michałkovič, which won at the Danish festival CPH:DOX and won the FIPRESCIaward at GoEast, and "Belarus 23.34" by Taćciana Svirepa. Released ironically and sadly at a time when Belarus has long been 342.

These must be the last attempts to record the reality of violence and dictatorship, which was exposed and exploded in 2020 (it should be expected that soon, after two or three more attempts, the cinema will leave this topic). In "Motherland" — through the already archetypal figure of the mother of a soldier who died while serving in the army. In "Belarus 23.34" — through the testimonies of victims beaten by security forces during protests.

The machine of violence that Belarus looks like in these restrained films is an image that is already a little penitent, possible in this form after the start of the war in Ukraine. A look at the protests and repression gradually swells with a noticeable disturbing connotation: could we then notice that this machine of violence is rolling directly into war? The correct answer, as always, is dual: both yes and no. But the penitent narrative already demands to answer "yes". Let's remember that.

The purged space of cinema inside Belarus has switched to a promise mode: we are all promised to watch a movie soon. Alaksandr Jafremaŭ's "Letter of Expectation" (we have the information from "Belarusfilm" that the film has already been finalized and handed over), then two strange co-productions with Uzbekistan, then even — just imagine — "The Adventures of Pranciš Vyrvič", filmed in 2020 and shown even in China. But not in Belarus ("We are considering the possibility of showing it to the Belarusian audience", said the general director of "Belarusfilm", so that we remember that there is nothing more difficult than showing a Belarusian film in Belarus). And especially stubbornly — "We are united", which has already changed its name to vaguely romantic "On the other side".

Exploiting hope is a common thing for Belarusian cinema, which for decades has been living in the mode of "it's here, soon, with this new director, with this producer — everything will blossom."

This time, everything must officially blossom from the announced blockbuster "The Black Castle of Aĺšanski", the project is as old as it is unfounded. In order not to wait in vain, you just need to understand that this genre — the post-Soviet blockbuster — was born almost simultaneously with the local dictatorships and still serves their dream of a spectacle for the people — and mass support for both the blockbuster and the regime. Every time the state tries to declare its own power, a "blockbuster operation" is announced, that's all.

A lot of noise was made by the fact that the main author positions in "The Black Castle of Aĺšanski" are Russian creators. But at the same time, we have a not too different in terms of purpose retroseries "For half an hour to spring" about Uładzimir Mulavin and "The Pieśniary" — and there is an advantage of Russian creators in co-production, and even the premiere on the Russian First channel, if it was discussed, then quietly and with unusual understanding.

Retro projects are such a thing that as soon as you make them, you have to immediately justify them, look for value in them and even find it. Therefore, it is better not to make them at all. If we do not hold back the temptation to create them anyway, we will have to look for some meaning in the unhealed cosplay of Sovietness as a space of total and grotesque sincerity, such a rigid and gentle proto-universe for the True Creator. We have to re-mythologize the figure of Uładzimir Mulavin, already mythologized by dozens of nostalgic-biographical TV programmes.

Thank God, he does not walk on water in the series. But the clumsy plot of the saviour plays out and has a pool of apostle musicians. It is worth thinking about what is the use of the image of the martyr creator who knows how to talk with both God and Mašeraŭ (with the second one, which is true, more willingly — and most importantly, the one who pleases him, answers, as it should be in the retrospective series for the First Channel).

Let's just note that the series closes the possibility here and now — when we really need it, and not sometime later — to demythologize the Soviet cultural space, to deconstruct the memory of it and the very phenomenon of "convenient authorship" that nurtured generations of post-Soviet people and even more convenient creators. It's a very unpleasant task, it's better to call The Pieśniary the Soviet Beatles.

It is interesting that questions about a rather revanchist series, which sweetly and absurdly resembles a recent special operation in Hrodna (both of which inextricably call to mind the immortal line "your mustache has come unstuck"), were neutralized with brilliantly idiotic censorship by the Ministry of Culture. Who would have thought that "erasing" the unwanted Kupałaŭski actor Dźmitryj Jesianievič in the role of Alaksandr Dziamieška is an effective way to make the skeptical audience accept the series first as a victim of censorship, and then as "their own". Unfortunately, the series avoided explaining how censorship became a social bond and a solidarizing cultural practice.

And for dessert. In the spring, the animated series "Maryla. In search of dziuniks", was released on the Voka service. It's distinguished by the singing of Iva Sativa, a handful of recognizable Minsk localizations and Belarusian dubbing (although let's not put the events on an equal footing: aren't the majority of Belarusian cartoons in Belarusian). The main thing is that the unbearable monopoly of "Belarusfilm" on children's animated series has been challenged again.

"Maryla" seems to be the only new and completely Belarusian film that a domestic viewer can watch in Belarus without any obstacles "in hot pursuit", without waiting for the sacramental "soon" and without entering the pool and the shindig. In truth, Belarusians are not particularly spoiled by such luxury, so thank you. For that, as always, all imperfections are forgiven.

All signs indicate that some new beginning is emerging in the situation of Belarusian cinema. But it does not show Belarus itself.

There is a need for new practical and productive forms of organization, in addition to the symbolic and status film academy. Maybe go back to crowdfunding? Shall we attack the fund? Cinema underground? A hybrid film studio? Shall we leave it as it is and let it be?

It must be assumed that the beginning will look like a lull and despair, while the bureaucratic cinema will push promises of a bright future.