Unknown Belarus. Shelter

For the 30th anniversaire of FIDMarseille about thirty directors have done us the honor of offering us some very beautiful short films.

Three directors make a movie about the events of their past week. Relationships, work, and day-to-day personal struggle—the minute details still fresh on their minds—are shown with unseen crystal clarity that challenges the very notion of dramatic fiction.

The film centers on a high-school student experiencing the last day of summer.

In a small, snow-covered town in Belarus, a former English teacher manages to scrape a living distributing leaflets to people’s letterboxes. In the evening, he joins his wife in their dingy apartment, and together they reminisce about their son, a student in Minsk they rarely see. Possibly their only excitement of the week is buying a lottery ticket, which, for a few seconds, gives them a chance to dream. Yuliya Shatun’s camera, at first oddly focused on the white expanses along every roadside, then begins to scrutinise the teacher in his comings and goings – a precise recording with, however, a hint of the moroseness of a terrain so rare in today’s cinema. The teacher has stoically adapted to a degenerate world and a life fuelled by stifled shame. An odour of neglect wafts between the apartment blocks, the uttered words and the background noise of the television. A certain irony floats in the air too, and it needs Yuliya Shatun’s patience to grasp and take responsibility for it.

An unbiased observation of the celebration of Independence Day of Belarus in Minsk on 3rd of July 2018.

Listening to the persistent humming sound, we follow the author on her existential journey through four cities consisting of real images and footage taken by the director’s father 25 years ago that always bring us to some visible or invisible border.

Minsk Komarovsky market is the main food market in Belarus. People call it “Komarovka”. It organically coexists people of all ages, backgrounds and characters. While for some the market has become a second home, others continue to dream of more.

Belarus is the only country in Europe where there is still a compulsory assignment of students studying at the expense of the state budget. The best graduates of the country who have passed a large competition for admission and who have earned the right to study for free with their knowledge are sent to places where no one else agrees to work due to difficult working conditions and lack of infrastructure.

Yuri and Alexander are veterans of the Afghan war. For many years they celebrate Victory Day together.

This is the story of a young girl who lives like most of us between love and hate, quarrels, unfulfilled dreams and hope for a better tomorrow.

Minsk Komarovsky market is the main food market in Belarus. People call it “Komarovka”. It organically coexists people of all ages, backgrounds and characters. While for some the market has become a second home, others continue to dream of more.

Belarus is the only country in Europe where there is still a compulsory assignment of students studying at the expense of the state budget. The best graduates of the country who have passed a large competition for admission and who have earned the right to study for free with their knowledge are sent to places where no one else agrees to work due to difficult working conditions and lack of infrastructure.

This is a love story. In a place that is not intended for this at all. The events of the film unfold in the day stay group of people with disabilities. And only the inner beauty and strength of the heroes of the film turn it into a "Place of Love." This is a story about all of us, about the pursuit of happiness, inner beauty, sincerity - that there are no differences between all of us.