July 27, Pozirk. Belarusian filmmaker Andrej Kudzinienka fled from Belarus after police raided his home and office and took away his passport, warning that he might face between eight and 12 years in prison for “extremism.”
As Januš Haŭryluk, director of the Bulbamovie film festival, wrote on Facebook, eight riot policemen and two officers of the Committee for State Security (KGB) searched Kudzinienka’s apartment and private movie school for 15 hours.
“Andrej was forced to flee Belarus,” Haŭryluk said. “Today, the most important thing is that Andrej is safe. We would like to believe that very soon he will be able to make films again instead of fighting for his own freedom.” He warned that all of Kudzinienka’s messaging and social media accounts are currently “under KGB control.”
Haŭryluk described Kudzinienka’s case as yet another example of how Alaksandar Łukašenka’s regime “destroys independent culture and persecutes people of art.”
Andrej Kudzinienka, currently 56, is a co-founder of the Bulbamovie film festival and author of numerous short films, documentaries and feature films.
He is best known for his drama Akupacyja. Misteryi (Occupation. Mysteries) about partisans in the Second World War who are a band of nihilistic marauders, roaming the countryside and dispensing what they see as justice to those they consider collaborators with the enemy, offering a perspective that conflicts with the current government’s view on Soviet partisans. The film has been blacklisted in Belarus for many years for ideological reasons.
In November 2022, Kudzinienka’s feature film Ten Lives of a Bear was banned from the Listapad film festival and several movie theaters in Minsk as authorities tightened ideological screening in the wake of 2020 protests.
