Seven Belarusian films reach Eurasia.DOC festival finals

The shortlist features 34 films from Belarus, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, and Uzbekistan. The films offer glimpses into the history of entire countries and generations, exploring themes of memory and war, family and homeland, faith and service, and cultural heritage. The program includes documentaries about the Great Patriotic War and the preservation of historical memory, as well as films addressing modern challenges.

“Every year, we receive hundreds of applications, each offering an author’s perspective on important events of the present and the past, and on people with their own destinies, memories, pain, hopes, struggles and joys. Documentary cinema allows us to see much more behind an individual story - the era, social processes and changes taking place around us. The anniversary program features films that do not simply document reality, but help us look at it more closely and understand what modern people and society are living through. These films differ in form, pace and tone, but together they create a vivid documentary portrait of our time,” Festival Director Valery Shekhovtsov said.

Seven of the 34 finalist films were made by Belarusian documentary filmmakers. They were produced by Belarusfilm, the National State Television and Radio Company of the Republic of Belarus (Belteleradiocompany), ONT and Mir TV channels, and the Minsk-Novosti news agency. Chairman of the Belarusian Union of Journalists, Executive Director of the festival Andrei Krivosheev said the participants of the festival had impressed the organizers with the exceptionally high level of competition among good, sincere, thought-provoking, sharp and emotional films.

“Imagine how difficult it was for the organizing committee and the selection panel to choose 34 best films from 417 entries. These films will be screened at cinemas in Smolensk, Minsk, and many other cities, which will host festival and post-festival screenings. We can see how much Belarusian documentary filmmaking has grown both qualitatively and quantitatively. Belarus has developed a national school of serious, authentic television and studio documentary filmmaking that is competitive across the vast Eurasian space,” Andrei Krivosheyev said.

The 10th CIS Countries Documentary Film Festival Eurasia.DOC will take place in Russia’s Smolensk and Minsk from 28 September to 2 October. The finalists and their filmmakers will meet festival audiences, while a professional jury will select the winners of the festival.