This year, the jury for the documentary film award at the Venice Film Festival included Filipino-American actress Liza Soberano, Golden Globes president Helen Hoehne, Oscar winner, producer, and founder of the Artemis Rising Foundation Regina K. Scully, Oscar winner, producer, and co-founder of Impact Partners Geralyn White Dreyfous, and founder and CEO of Think-Film Impact Production Danielle Turkov Wilson.
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The jury members stated that the film “Letters from a Silenced Country” gives a human face to a crisis that is too often reduced to headlines and numbers, revealing impossibly difficult choices that help preserve humanity. Although the film’s roots are in Belarus, it transcends the borders of one country, speaking to anyone who has had to love someone from a distance or fight. The film is a powerful example of how documentary storytelling reveals that deeply personal stories can also be very universal.
Along with the award, the creators receive a cash prize of 10,000 US dollars.
The film “Letters from a Silenced Country” by Belarusian director Andrei Kutsila, who lives in Poland, tells about contemporary Belarus through the stories of five people who have suffered repression and violence under the regime.
In one of the world’s most important cinema halls, a voice was given to people whom the Belarusian regime tries to silence. The sensitive and shocking portrait of his homeland created by director A. Kutsila moved and impressed the audience at the film’s world premiere. Before the premiere, director A. Kutsila handed political prisoners’ letters to the festival’s artistic director Alberto Barbera. The reality of Belarus revealed by the film became a painful discovery for viewers.
The film is based on personal letters written from prison, exile, and underground; observational documentary elements are combined with archival material, as well as animation created from drawings found in prison.
“We are very happy about this recognition!” said director A. Kutsila upon learning about the award. “We hope the award will help draw even more attention to the film and its subject. It is also gratifying that more and more documentaries dealing with complex and painful topics are selected and presented at top-level film festivals.”
Co-producer G. Žickytė states that many strong films participated in the festival program. “We are grateful to the Golden Globes jury for the recognition. This award is meaningful to us also because it helps draw attention to the painful reality happening right next to us. After the premiere in Venice, more than one viewer admitted they had no idea that repression on such a scale is happening these days.
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It is also important to me that the director speaks about this painful reality not declaratively, but with sensitive and authentic cinematic language, telling his own lived story. After the film, it seems you feel what it means to live constantly watched or to be imprisoned. I believe that such strong auteur cinema helps such people remain visible and prevents their stories from disappearing from our sight,” said G. Žickytė upon learning about the award.
In 2020, after peaceful protests in Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko’s regime began brutal crackdowns on dissenters. Many regime opponents and freedom-seeking people were forced to leave the country, imprisoned, injured, or killed.
When Russia started a large-scale war in Ukraine, a new wave of resistance arose in Belarus, to which the regime responded with even harsher repression. Publicly expressing dissent against the government became impossible in the country. Political prisoners communicated with the world through letters. These letters became the basis of the film “Letters from a Silenced Country.”
The films of Belarusian documentary filmmaker A. Kutsila, who lives in Poland, have been shown and awarded at major international documentary film festivals – IDFA, DOK Leipzig, Hot Docs, and the Krakow Film Festival.
After the 2020 protests, the director was forced to leave Belarus. Settling in Poland, he continued his creative work. For the past five years, A. Kutsila has devoted most of his work to the stories of Belarusians experiencing repression and living in exile.
The documentary film “Letters from a Silenced Country” was created in collaboration with film production companies DocEdu Foundation (Poland), Moonmakers (Lithuania), and inselfilm produktion (Germany). The production and presentation of the film at the Venice International Film Festival was partially funded by the Lithuanian Film Centre.
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The film will be released in Lithuanian cinemas in spring 2027.
