In 2020, Aleksandr Lukashenko, one of the so-called “last dictators” of Europe, alongside Vladimir Putin and (perhaps, at a stretch) Viktor Orban, stole the Presidential Election. Official Belarusian statistics put his vote share at 81% versus Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s 10%, but it was tainted by widespread acceptance in the opposition that this was neither a fair, nor free, democratic process.
The fact that Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was only running because her husband was jailed might’ve been a clue. This fake result spurred heartening, widespread protests across the country, with the old, pre-soviet white-red-white Belarus flag becoming an ever-present symbol of their hopeful future, as well as the near-constant use of Viktor Tsoi’s classic protest anthem “Peremen” (Changes!).
Sadly, like the response to many widespread protests in Eastern Europe (also seen recently in Georgia and the mass mobilisation against the Georgian Dream “foreign agent” law), the potato führer’s crackdown was swift and brutal. His OMON brutes — characterised by their facemasks and all-black gear — are renowned for their horrific use of torture and even sexual assault of protesters, making resistance against the regime feel fruitless.
Thankfully, this hasn’t stopped a variety of new and emerging filmmakers from documenting the resistance. From documentaries such as Courage (Aleksei Aliaksei Paluyan, 2021) — covering the Belarus Free Theatre — to shorts like Handbook (Pavel Mozhar, 2021), reconstructing brutalities and tortures, to the one-take feature Minsk (Boris Guts, 2022), showing the horrific cost of political violence, filmmakers from Belarus and outside, are showing the world the rotten heart of Lukashenko’s vile regime as well as the basic goodness of ordinary Belarusian people.
Now comes the most high-profile film yet: Under The Grey Sky (Mara Tamkovich, 2024), which just premiered at The Tribeca Festival. Based on the true story of Belsat TV journalist Katsiaryna Andreyeva, who was sentenced to eight years in jail for covering these protests, and recently promoted by Tsikhanouskaya herself, it’s a heartening portrayal of what it means to be an independent journalist in a full-on authoritarian state. My review, below:
The Fate of Life Under the Grey Sky
Lena (Aliaksandra Vaitsekhovich) reports from the window. Staying above in an apartment gives OMON (Belarusian riot police) less chance of spotting her. The people are in the informally known “Square of Changes” in Minsk, the place where Raman Banderenka was beaten up in 2020 by masked thugs for attempting to stop them from cutting down red and white ribbons — symbolising the original white-red-white flag of the country before Soviet Occupation. He later died, spurring further protests.
In urgent handheld frames, split between TV footage of the protests and a tense apartment scene, Lena attempts to stay calm as she surveys the heavy-handed crackdown, all the while dreading the fated police knock on the apartment door.
Read the rest over at Journey Into Cinema!