The Bulbamovie Belarusian Film Festival is now in its ninth year and runs until Sunday.
The event opens on Friday with Farewell, a documentary directed by Jakub Stankiewicz and nominated for the Prix Europa 2023 award.
Highlights include the Polish premiere of Paweł Siczek's documentary This Kind of Hope about Belarusian diplomat and opposition figure Andrei Sannikov.
The festival also features the long-awaited premiere of the feature anthology Processes from Belsat TV.
The festival's director, Janusz Gawryluk, has emphasized the need for feature films that subtly address Belarusian realities, offering indirect yet powerful narratives.
"I think that people now need not documentaries, but feature films," Gawryluk said in an interview with the Belsat news website. "And that is difficult ... I believe the time has come to just make films. Because there's not much that can be done for the people who are in prisons. It's tough, honestly. I think there is a need for feature films that will speak about what's happening in Belarus not directly, not straightforwardly, but between the lines, as is the case in good feature films."
The festival also includes a section dedicated to Young Belarusian Cinema, presentations by Polish documentary filmmakers Mirek Dembiński and Jacek Bławut, and showcases the Independent Belarusian Film Academy.
Three years after the Belarusian Revolution, the country's film industry faces worsening conditions. Film directors who have fled Belarus are struggling to adapt to new environments, while those who remain are struggling under secretive, almost guerrilla-like conditions, fearful of showing their work at festivals abroad.
At a recent film workshop in Lithuania, Belarusian participants wore "Do Not Photograph" badges, highlighting the pervasive atmosphere of anxiety over likely reprisals by the regime at home.
The Warsaw festival's Young Cinema review has seen fewer submissions this year, reflecting the deteriorating situation, the organizers said.
2023 marks a pivotal year for Belarusian cinema. Productions that began in Belarus are concluding, and the future of Belarusian émigré cinema remains uncertain.
The Bulbamovie festival takes place at Warsaw's historic Iluzjon cinema and more information is available from its website: bulbamovie.wordpress.com.
(rt/gs)
Source: bulbamovie.wordpress.com, belsat.eu