PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Aliaksei Paluyan, director of the film Courage.

To listen to the interview, click on the ► icon on the right, just above the picture

For his first documentary feature, Belarus director Aliaksei Paluyan went back to his country to narrate the people and his actor friends constant fight for democracy. Paluyan chose his friends Maryna, Pavel and Denis as the protagonists of the film and he showed their 15 work as activists and as artists of the Belarus Free Theatre. The director explains the reason behind the title, Courage and the way he tried to keep his distance from the happenings while shooting. Courage not only reminds us the power of art but it also tells us all that especially in countries where democracy is taken for granted, we tend to forget that it is instead a right we should always fight for and we should never ever take it for granted.

Courage: In the course of the presidential elections in Belarus in the summer of 2020, three actors from an under-ground theatre „Belarus Free Theatre“ in Minsk get caught up in the maelstrom of mass protests. They are drawn to the wide streets of Minsk to protest vociferously for freedom of speech and the long-awaited change of power. But the people‘s voice is brutally crushed by the regime‘s security apparatus. Members of the theatre group and many other people get arrested. The country is on the brink of civil war. COURAGE accompanies the courageous and peaceful resistance of Maryna, Pavel and Denis before and during the protests. The film takes a very personal look at the events and thus provides a close and gripping insight into the lives of people in today‘s Belarus who are fighting for their freedom and the right to democracy.

To discover more about the 71st edition of Berlin International Film Festival, click here.