How to suppress a protest? The "Handbook" provides a comprehensive answer to this question. This instructional video includes almost everything needed, except the actual beatings. It's August 2020. While protests against Lukashenko's re-election are gaining momentum in Minsk, Pavel Mozhar watches the events unfolding in his homeland from a room in Berlin. Over these few days, around 7,000 protesters were arrested by the notorious OMON riot police.

Mozhar studied hundreds of witness statements on the internet and discovered there was a systemic approach to the repression. He transforms his room into a studio where he stages re-enactments of witness testimonies with a "police officer" wearing black clothes and a balaclava, and four "detainees" dressed identically in shirts and jeans. The result is distressingly informative.

Original language: Russian, German
Subtitles: English

A summed up reenactment of a thorough investigation into how the Belarusian dictatorship threatens and tortures protesters

The films in competition will be viewed by an international jury