Berlin: Belarusian Critics Award Filmmakers in Exile

The community of Belarusian filmmakers in exile have gathered in Berlin to honor their own, presenting the second-annual Belarusian Film Critics Awards, the Red Heathers.

The awards, presented at Berlin’s European Film Market (EFM) are as much a display of political resistance as they are a celebration of artistic excellence. Thousands of Belarusians fled the country following the contested 2020 presidential elections there when the Aliaksandr Lukashenka government began cracking down on peaceful pro-democracy protestors.

At the EFM last year, exiled filmmakers launched an independent film academy. A parallel independent Belarussian Film Critics Association was also set up, with support from the German Marshall Fund, Poland’s Trzy Trąby Fund, and the Goethe-Instituts in Exil, a special section of the German cultural institution which supports artists and intellectuals from countries where the Goethe Institute had to shut down their operations due to war or political interference.

The Red Heather prizes were handed out for films produced in 2021 and 2022.

Prolific filmmaker Mikita Lauretski won best feature film for A Date in Minsk, a one-take re-staging of his first date with his ex-girlfriend, Volha Kavaliova, who had been in a dysfunctional relationship for 8 years. Both Mikita and Volha play themselves in the re-creation. Lauretski also won the best director honor and Kavaliova won best actress, also for her performance in Lavretski’s 2021 fantasy drama A Kid’s Flick.

Belarussian Independent Film Academy co-founder Aliaksei Paluyan took the best documentary prize for Courage, his look at the pro-democracy protests, which screened in Berlin in 2021, sharing the honor with Sasha Kulak for Mara, a more impressionistic, documentary essay on the same subject, which premiered in Rotterdam in 2022.

Full list of 2024 Red Heather winners below.

Best Fiction Feature Film
A Date in Minsk by Mikita Lauretski

Best Director
Mikita Lauretski for A Date in Minsk

Best Actress
Volha Kavaliova for A Date in Minsk and A Kid’s Flick

Best Actor
Andrei Novik for Fostering

Best Documentary Feature Film
Mara by Sasha Kulak
Courage by Aliaksei Paluyan

Best Cinematography
Tanya Haurylchyk and Jesse Mazuch for Courage
Yulia Shatun for A Date in Minsk

Best Script
Andrei Kashperski and Mikhail Zui for Fostering
Uladzimir Kazlou for Summer’89

Best Animated Film
Shirey Mara by Nata Karneyeva

Best Production Design
Yury Siamashka for Trash Head

Best Sound Design
Volha Podhayskaya and anonymous sound designer for Voices. Where Is My Land

Discovery Of The Year
Yury Siamashka