‘Letters From the Silenced Country,’ Documentary About Oppression in Belarus, Boarded by Filmotor Ahead of Venice Premiere (EXCLUSIVE)
Filmotor has acquired world sales rights to "Letters From the Silenced Country," a documentary by exiled Belarusian filmmaker Andrei Kutsila, ahead of its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival. The partly animated film portrays contemporary Belarus through the stories of individuals who have suffered imprisonment, repression and exile under the country's autocratic regime, using letters as one of the few remaining links between political prisoners and the outside world.
The documentary will screen in Venice's Open – Out of Competition section and follows figures including a father hiding from surveillance to avoid separation from his daughter, a former criminal investigator who fled to Poland after breaking with the system, a young student imprisoned for protesting who turns to drawing, and a man whose story is told through smuggled photographs. The film draws on the aftermath of Belarus's 2020 protests and subsequent crackdown, compounded by further repression following the war in Ukraine. Kutsila, now based in Poland after being forced to leave Belarus, has previously won awards at IDFA and the Warsaw Film Festival for earlier documentaries.
- Filmotor acquires sales rights to Belarus documentary ahead of Venice premiere
- Film tells stories of imprisonment and exile via smuggled letters
- Director Andrei Kutsila was forced into exile after 2020 protests
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Belarus has been under the authoritarian rule of Alexander Lukashenko since 1994, and his grip tightened sharply after the disputed 2020 presidential election, when mass protests broke out and were met with a violent crackdown. Since then, thousands of Belarusians have been imprisoned, forced into exile or cut off from contact with the outside world, with the situation worsening further after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, given Belarus's close alignment with Moscow. Letters smuggled out of prisons have become one of the few ways relatives and supporters can learn what is happening to those detained.
The documentary at the centre of this story was made by Andrei Kutsila, a Belarusian filmmaker who has himself been forced to leave the country and now lives in Poland. His earlier work has been recognised at documentary festivals including IDFA and the Warsaw Film Festival, giving him a track record in this area before taking on this project.
The Venice Film Festival is one of the world's most prominent film events, and having a film selected there, even outside the main competition, brings significant international visibility. A sales agent taking on distribution rights ahead of such a premiere is a routine but important step in helping a film reach audiences and buyers beyond the festival itself.