How Belarusian Filmmakers Are Opening Themselves to the World

Stories of Challenges and Successes

By Rafał Nowak

Despite being far from home, facing the challenges of emigration, a lack of funding, and countless other obstacles, Belarusian cinema is still alive — filmmakers continue to start new projects and travel to international film festivals. How do they manage to do it? During the discussion, we will talk about their successes and achievements, which, of course, would not have been possible without hard work, learning from their own mistakes, courage, and a bit of luck.

The discussion’s guests will be: Volia Chajkouskaya, whose documentary “Not Made for Politics” recently premiered at PÖFF in Tallinn; Mara Tamkovich, who tells the world the story of Belarusian journalists in her film “Under the Grey Sky”; and Siarhei Kavaliou, who this year took part in the Berlinale as the cinematographer of “The Swan Song of Fyodor Ozerov”, and is now developing his own archival project “Kalyska”, collecting Belarusian home videos from the 1990s.

About the event

Mara Tamkovich is a Polish-Belarusian screenwriter and director. Born in Minsk, Belarus, she moved to Poland to study journalism at the University of Warsaw and later graduated in film directing from the Warsaw Film School and the Wajda School. For almost ten years, Mara worked as a journalist for independent Belarusian media broadcasting from Poland.
Her films focus on socially relevant topics deeply connected to reality and have been presented at numerous festivals in Poland and abroad — including the Chicago IFF, Torino Film Festival, Minsk IFF, and FEST – New Directors | New Films Festival — receiving over 30 awards.
Her first feature, Under the Grey Sky, premiered at the Tribeca Festival and, among others, won the Best Debut Award at the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia. Mara is a member of the Polish Directors’ Guild and the Belarusian Independent Film Academy.

Mara Tamkovich

Siarhei Kavaliou is a Belarusian DOP and documentary filmmaker, creator and co-founder of the MediaHUB Batumi studio. He started his career in 2008 as a cameraman. From 2011 to 2020, he worked for the Belsat TV channel. Filmed news, reports, documentary series and films. In 2020, he enrolled in a one-year program at a film school in Lodz, a cinematography class. In 2022, as a co-director, he made the film "Voices. Where is my land". In 2024, he made a short film "Papa Bo's Controller". Also worked as a cinematographer on the film "The Swan Song of Fyodor Ozerov" (2025).

Siarhei Kavaliou

Participants

Volia Chajkouskaya is a Belarus-born producer and director based in Estonia. She works for the Allfilm production company. Volia obtained a Masters degree in directing and producing documentary films at the Baltic Film and Media School (Tallinn, Estonia). She is the founder of the Independent Belarusian Film Festival Northern Lights and the online cinema VODBLISK. Volia Chajkouskaya is also the co-founder of the Belarusian Independent Film Academy. Volia produced “The Road Movie” (2016), ‘My Granny from Mars’ (2018), “Prazdnik" (2019), and “Yoyogi” (2022). Volia’s directorial debut documentary, "Common Language”, premiered at Jihlava in the Short Film Competition in 2020. At the moment, Volia is producing several documentary and fiction films. In November 2025, the Tallinn Film Festival "Black Nights" hosted the premiere of her feature-length directorial debut, "Not Made for Politics."

Volia Chajkouskaya

Special Screening

Under the Grey Sky

Hard times: a chamber drama shot in the tradition of the “moral anxiety” cinema about a prisoner of conscience in the realities of political terror in Belarus.

Belarusian Competition

The Swan Song of Fedor Ozerov

Amid rumours of the impending outbreak of World War III, 25-year-old musician Fedor Ozerov becomes obsessed with searching for his favorite sweater with daisies. He believes that this sweater gives him magical songwriting powers.

How Belarusian Filmmakers Are Opening Themselves to the World

About the event

Participants

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