The film festival was postponed twice due to various circumstances (first the COVID-19 pandemic, and then the Internet blocking in Belarus), but the organizers decided to support their audience and hold «Northern Lights-2020» online.
The online format is a new experience not only for the organizing team, but also for the audience themselves, who are used to watching films of the festival in the cinema. A separate streaming platform was specifically created for the new format together with mediatech.by for easy film watching. Read more about how to use the online platform in the next releases. You can watch the festival's films by paying for access, but all events will be available for free.
The festival will feature 28 films, including 15 international ones, 8 documentaries from Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, 5 shorts from Sweden for the first time and 8 films in the full program of Belarusian cinema! In addition, the industrial platform « Northern Lights» will host 7 industrial events that will be broadcast in the social networks of the festival.
The current online program of the «Northern Lights» is richer than offline: there are only more than 20 films from the international program, and all of them are Belarusian premieres and participants of major film festivals:
- the documentary-feature film "Ridge" (Sweden) produced by Erik Hemmendorff, who also produces the films of the famous director Ruben Estlund, received a special award at the CPH:DOX Award. The film features excellent cinematography by Ita Zbroniec – Zajt, a winner of the Sven Nykvist Cinematography Award at the Göteborg Film Festival.
- the Lithuanian film "Exemplary behavior" by Audrius Mickevicius and Nerijus Milerius raises topical issues for post-Soviet society about the feeling of collective guilt and explores the paradox of exemplary behavior of murderers. The film won the Golden Dove special award at the international documentary film festival in Leipzig.
- the world premiere of the Estonian film "Prazdnik" about the phenomenon of beauty contests took place at the White nights film festival in Tallinn, and the film of the same director "Anthill" has already participated in the «Northern Lights» By the way, the film was produced by the director of the film festival Volia Chajkouskaya.
- "Truth and justice" is a film adaptation of the cult eponymously-named book by Estonian writer Anton Tammsaare, and the film was produced by Ivo Felt, who is already familiar to Belarusian audience. The film was selected as the Estonian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the Oscar-2019 and entered the long list.
The international program corresponds to the latest events in the country and the world, tells about strong women in politics and raises issues of violence against women in society:
- a documentary from Sweden "Feminister" is an incredible overview of Swedish foreign Minister Margot Wallström's four- year ruling;
- the feature film "Force of habit", created in a collaboration of 7 Finnish directors, tells about violence against women through the eyes of women themselves and explores this topic;
- and the documentary "Brussels", one of the most successful Estonian producers Gints Grube, allows you to look from the inside at the management of the European Union!
A distinctive feature of "Northern Lights-2020" was the creation of a separate Belarusian program. This year it consists of 8 films, more than half of which are directorial debuts!
The program features such familiar names as film director Viktor Asliuk and his poetic film essay "Epitaph", Andrei Kutsila with the emotional film "I need the Handshakes", "Boundaries" by Yuliya Shatun and "Invisible Paradise" by Daria Yurkevich.
For the first time the audience will see the film of successful Belarusian music video director Artyom Lobach "Way Home" about finding young people their place in the world; the psychological drama "Deserter" by Sasha Strelchenko is a thesis film work of Minsk director, who graduated a very prestigious film school FAMU in Prague.
New names will also appear in the movie almanac "In -touch": in addition to the film directed by Maxim Shved, you can see the work of promising directors Ksenia Golubovich, Ales Lappo and Veronika Bondarovich. The main theme of the almanac is how computers and the Internet are changing the lives of young Belarusians.
Current industrial platform consists of 7 events, mostly those which affect the understanding of art and interpret it in a movie or painting; issues of proximity of the Belarusian culture and Belarusians with their neighbors from Northern Europe in the public talk with the current writer and translator Anka Upala, and a large discussion with the head of Lithuanian film centre promotion department Dovile Butnorute about how the community has changed after the movement #metoo.
The slogan and main message of the festival 2020 is LISTEN AND HEAR – is more relevant than ever in the context of recent events in the world and in Belarus. The «Northern Lights» team calls its audience to express empathy and take care of yourself, loved ones and others. We want you to focus on the importance of not only listening, but also hearing. We want to show that empathy is not about weakness, it is about mutual respect and help.
A new visual concept was made especially for the 6th film festival. An enthusiast of the initiative group " March, baby!” Svetlana Gatalskaya, creative director and writer Vera Filenko, her daughter and mother, and others took part in the filming. This year the visual concept of «Northern Lights» lets the audience explore the themes of empathy, intimacy, continuity of generations, the breakdown of old behavior models.
Main supporters: Nordisk KulturFond (Denmark), Nordic Council of Ministers Office (Denmark).
Co-organizers: Norwegian Embassy in Kiev, Danish Cultural Institute in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, Current Time TV, The unitary enterprise Kinovideoprokat of the Minsk City Executive Committee – KinoMinska, Volia Films production company.
General partners: Finnish Liaison Office in Belarus, Embassy of the Kingdom of Sweden in Belarus, Embassy of Estonia in Belarus, Embassy of Lithuania in Belarus, Embassy of Latvia in Belarus, Icelandic Film Centre, Finnish Film Foundation, Estonian Film Institute, Norwegian Film Institute, Swedish Film Institute, Danish Film Institute, Lithuanian Film Centre, National Film Centre of Latvia, B2B DOC - Baltic to Black Sea Documentary Network.
Partners: DoubleTree by Hilton Minsk Hotel, official distributor of Mazda in Belarus, Taxi 5, art-group «Sinie Gory», FirstRental rental house, “Svobody 4” bar, “Zerno” coffee shop, Moonlightroom.by, DataHata.by, Blockbuster.by, Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival.
Media partners: BYCARD, CityDog, mvradio.by, 34mag.net, Belarus 3 and Belarus 24 TV channels, AfishaTUT.by, TheVillage, Kyky.org