What are the key topics and what surprises Belarusians? Jubilee documentary film festival “Eurasia.DOC” started

X International Documentary Film Festival “Eurasia.DOC” started in Smolensk. Minsk will take the baton on October 1 and 2. The anniversary season again brings together documentary filmmakers, directors and representatives of the media community from different countries. The project traditionally involves hundreds of works, the authors of which curiously study the most important social events and the life of the common man. A documentary film in which memory and pain, hope and overcoming, allows you to see behind a private history time and global changes occurring around.

This year, 413 applications were received from 17 countries. The list of finalists includes 34 films from Belarus, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia and Uzbekistan. The main topics are memory and war, family and native land, faith and service, cultural heritage and modern challenges.

- The main competition features films from around the world that are sharp and equally understandable to an international audience. The jury is interested in the sincere view of the author, who felt the topic and used expressive tools to convey the main message, says Andrey Krivosheev, Chairman of the Board of the Belarusian Union of Journalists, Executive Director of the festival. The selected 34 films are already winners, and we have three prizes, and special awards from partners and sponsors will win the best. An important point is openness to live discussions, feedback from the audience.

At once, seven films created by Belarusian documentary filmmakers - authors of Belarusfilm, Belteleradiocompany, ONT, STV and Mir TV channels, Minsk-Novosti agency - were shortlisted for the main competition.

“Belarusfilm has released a film about life after the Chernobyl accident,” the source continues. Belteleradiocompany has two tapes. One is simply impossible to watch without tears: it is about the mother-heroin Kupriyanova, who lost all five sons at the front. The second is about the first, most terrible hundred days of the war, the beginning of torture, executions, concentration camps. And about the character of the Belarusian nation that manifested itself in 1941. The tape STV - also about the Great Patriotic War - makes the viewer think about what Belarusians experienced, what internal forces helped to overcome everything. ONT presented a film-reflection about Vietnam, its rich culture and the most difficult trials that the people of this country went through, and Mir - a work on how to combine a large family, career and position of leader of public opinion. The Minsk-Novosti news agency spoke about one of the most serious challenges facing the modern world - the consumption and distribution of drugs: how the gangster conglomerate works, what tools are used to ruin the lives of young children. The participants of these schemes themselves tell about the criminal business, their personal motives and deep remorse, including those who are already serving a sentence for such crimes. I hope that in the framework of open discussions after the screenings, we will give young people real tools to fight this evil.

The festival not only maintains a stable balance between independent author and television cinema, but also continues to support the youth competition Eurasia.DOC. 4 minutes. Participants between the ages of 16 and 35 had to find the exact intonation and reveal their idea in just four minutes.

- Of the 52 short films received from Russia, Belarus, China, Abkhazia, Kazakhstan, Bulgaria, 14 were selected for the final, and five are Belarusian, Andrei Krivosheev emphasizes. - Everyone gets prizes. There are also five special awards from the Ministry of Culture for information promotion of traditional values.

Creative works will find their audience thanks to the festival, and the creators themselves will receive an award ceremony on October 2 at the Belarusian State Academy of Arts.

“The main and youth competitions differ in format and experience of the participants, but are united by a common desire to talk about the important,” concludes Andrey Krivosheev.

protas@sb.by