Watchdog

Boris Guts's latest movie hasn't even been released, but it's already reportedly banned in both Russia and Belarus.

That's because the movie deals with a topic highly sensitive for those in power in both countries: anti-government protests, and in particular the series of mass rallies that convulsed Belarus in the aftermath of an election a year ago -- on August 9, 2020 -- that was widely seen as rigged.

The Russian director was hopeful that MINSK, his unsettling drama about a young couple in the Belarusian capital who get caught up in the state's brutal crackdown, would reach a sizeable audience.

"The goal was to show 90 minutes in the life of a simple couple from Minsk who got embroiled in this horror. So that the viewer would be unable to blink even for a second, and would become part of it," he said in an interview with RFE/RL's Russian Service.

But Guts, who has roots in Belarus, soon understood that his chances of winning the hearts of viewers in the two countries he knows best would be scuppered due to a decision allegedly made at the very top.

In June, the Telegram channel Nexta-Live published what it said were screenshots of an official report filed on June 26 by Belarusian Foreign Minister Uladzimer Makey, containing minutes of his meeting with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow.

High-Level Scrutiny

Much of the report focused on trade and diplomatic cooperation over Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014 despite international condemnation. But it also, astoundingly, referenced Guts's film.

"I secured support from the Russian side for a ban in Russia on the fictional film MINSK," read the document, whose authenticity has not been established independently by RFE/RL. "[It] is absolutely provocative and aimed at fueling protest moods in Belarus."

Guts never expected such high-level scrutiny, but he got a hint of the reception his crew would face when he applied for permission to film in the Tula region, south of Moscow.

"We were ultimately prohibited from filming in Russia under various pretexts -- politics, the coronavirus, and so on," he said.

The crew ended up moving the project to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, parts of which had Soviet-era buildings that resembled those that dominate the outskirts of Minsk.

The trailer for the movie, which was released in July and has close to 400,000 views on YouTube, is a high-octane clip that begins with romantic scenes from the couple's quiet life in Minsk, and quickly unravels into shaky video footage of police beatings and torture.

Guts says many of the scenes were reconstructed from videos posted online last summer by protesters and citizen journalists, and the comments beneath the trailer suggest that he's been successful in capturing the atmosphere of those tense days in Belarus.

"I could never have imagined how people who survived war felt when they watched films about war," one user, Sergei Vasilyev, wrote. "Now, it seems, I understand it a bit."

'Hell All Over Again'

"The trailer alone leaves me feeling funny," wrote Ilya Gubin. "I'm afraid I won't be able to watch this movie, because I don't want to absorb that hell all over again."

Guts said it was emotionally the hardest project he's undertaken. To create a realistic atmosphere redolent of the conditions faced by protesters arrested by the regime of Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who has ruled Belarus since 1994 and claimed a landslide victory in the election a year ago, Guts says he "morally humiliated" his actors in various ways to elicit anger and emotion.

"After every take, all the actors, [camera] operators, the producer and the director, everyone hugged," he said. "Because without affection and intimacy it was hard to endure."

Guts said he decided to make the film almost as soon as the protests began following the election. He said he learned that a friend of his had been raped by police officers, and that another friend was arrested while he was walking to a fruit market with his son.

"All of this built up inside of me and I immediately decided that I would make a film whatever happens," he said. "I'm not a politician, revolutionary, or journalist. I'm a filmmaker, and that's all I can do to help my friends in Belarus."

He said that, despite the report of Russia's decision to ban the film, he will be applying for a distribution license from the country's Culture Ministry, and has at least one distributor lined up and willing to show the film if the license is granted.

"The film's not yet ready, no one's yet seen it, the sound is still being edited," he said. "But they've already banned it."

The U.S. ambassador to Belarus has said that developments there in the year since a disputed presidential election spawned a popular democratic movement were "an incredibly momentous event in Belarus" driven by the desire of Belarusians “to have a voice in defining their future.”

In an exclusive interview with RFE/RL’s Belarus Service published on August 7, Ambassador Julie Fisher stressed that the United States continues to call for "an inclusive dialogue" inside Belarus that "leads to a new election" under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) "after the unconditional release of all political prisoners."

"That is what will take us to a legitimate new leader in Belarus, and we really look forward to that," Fisher said.

Fisher was sworn in as the first U.S. ambassador to Belarus since 2008 in December 2020 but, because of the leadership dispute in Belarus, she has not taken up her post in Minsk.

Belarusian authorities have forcibly expelled or jailed opposition leaders, arrested tens of thousands of people, targeted dozens of NGOs, and refused accreditation to or forced out journalists since a crackdown on massive street protests began after longtime leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka claimed to have won a sixth presidential term on August 9, 2020.

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Interview: As Crackdown Intensifies, British Historian Says Fate Has Long Been Cruel To Belarus  

His reelection claim has been dismissed by the beleaguered opposition and the West, which has slapped multiple rounds of sanctions to pressure Lukashenka's regime to ease the crackdown, talk with the opposition, and ensure a new, independent election.

Exiled opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who considers herself the winner of the disputed election, met with U.S. President Joe Biden and other senior U.S. officials last month in a visit to Washington that Fisher called "absolutely historic."

"We spent time thinking about how we can affect what is happening inside Belarus today, how it is we can drive toward dialogue and a new election," Fisher said. "We talked about ways that the United States…and our partners in Europe can best support those who are seeking the rule of law and a more democratic Belarus."

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Belarus's Beleaguered Opposition Seeks U.S. Support. What Are The Options?

At the same time, Fisher said, the United States has found that diplomacy with the Lukashenka government rarely "leads to engagement and response."

"So we will continue to look for additional tools of pressure to affect the decision-making calculation inside Belarus," she said.

Fisher added, however, that the standoff in Belarus is between "the people of Belarus and a dictator."

"This is about their desire to have their voices heard by their leadership," she said.