The Voice of The New Belarus

About the event

Parallel to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, the systematic repression of democratic processes has been happening in Belarus for years. These processes, among other things, weaken and destroy the working conditions for many artists and intellectuals who have been leaving the country to create new lives for themselves with the hope that they will one day be able to return home. Many truths remain hidden until we start talking about them, writing them down or documenting them in another way. Such knowledge must circulate in the art world so that it connects and empowers us to implement human rights. One of the projects that has been created with the intent to speak up is Insulted. Belarus Worldwide Readings Project, created by the American John Freedman and his wife Oksana Mysina. Based on the play of the same name by Andrei Kureichik, they shot the documentary Voices of the New Belarus and prepared a shorter version of it called Love Is Stronger Than Fear which has recently won the Grand Prix at the 14th Atlantis International Internet Short Film Festival in New York.

The event will take place in person in Kranj and on Zoom. With it, we in Slovenia also wish to open the space for theatre colleagues who, with their work, are keeping their culture and language alive, albeit no longer at home, and support their efforts.

Programme:

• Insulted. Belarus Worldwide Readings Project – the project will be presented by John Freedman, a writer and translator who worked in Moscow from 1988 and was a theatre critic for the Moscow Times between 1992 and 2015. He is currently living and working in Chania, Crete.
• The screening of the film Love Is Stronger Than Fear, the short version of the film Voices of the New Belarus.
• A reading of a selected short excerpt from a play by the contemporary Belarusian author Diana Balyko who is currently living in Prague.
• A discussion (in person and on Zoom) with the authors of the film, Oksana Mysina and John Freedman, the Belarusian artist Diana Balykova and the playwright and screenwriter Andrei Kureichik, the author of the play Voices of the New Belarus, who is currently teaching at Yale University in the United States.

 

Author of the concept and moderator: Tatjana Ažman.

 

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