Red Heather That Grew From Concrete

An Interview with Irena Kaciałovič and Anonymous, the Co-Founders of the Belarusian Film Critics’ Award Red Heather

Author

Volha Isakava and Sasha Razor

Abstract

Red Heather Belarusian Film Critics Award [Chyrvony veras] is the only Belarusian film award, currently operating in exile. It was created in response to the brutal suppression of the popular protests by the Belarusian authoritarian regime in 2020. The subsequent crackdown and intensified repressions in Belarus resulted in the forced exile of many members of the filmmaking community, the closure of independent production and distribution venues in Belarus, and the need for new cinematic institutions, support, and labour organisations outside Belarus. Red Heather’s mission is to highlight and promote the achievements of Belarusian filmmakers, increase the visibility of Belarusian cinema, and “to contribute to empowering the Belarusian film community”. Red Heather features Belarusian cinema, created in Belarus and in the diaspora, in fifteen nominations and in a variety of formats: short and full-length, feature and documentary films, animation, and reportage. Red Heather serves as an important nexus of collaboration between cinematic institutions in the European Union and Belarusian cinema institutions in exile.

Keywords

Belarus, Belarusian cinema, 2020 protests, Belarusian Film Critics Award Red Heather, cinema in exile, film criticism.

Red Heather (Calluna vulgaris; чырвоны верас) is the small pink wildflower that takes root on land others have given up on: burnt clearings, overgrazed pasture, the dry sands and pine forests that cover much of Belarus. It is also the namesake of the only Belarusian film award, whose trophy is a sprig of heather pushing up through brick.¹

Red Heather was first conceived in 2017 as a half-serious social media poll among critics. The August 2020 protests and the subsequent crackdown turned the joke into a necessity. When the Listapad festival in Minsk became completely subordinated under state-run Belarusfilm and its national competition dissolved, the country’s independent film community lost one of its last shared platforms. Red Heather was reconstituted in exile and now belongs to a growing constellation of Belarusian civic institutions abroad, alongside BIFA (the Belarusian Independent Film Academy) and BFN (the Belarusian Filmmakers Network), both of which are addressed elsewhere in this volume.

The award operates as a solidarity response to displacement and repression, offering recognition, support, and professional networking to filmmakers and critics, and as a nascent structure of diasporic governance oriented toward a “New Belarus” and its democratic futurity. Its manifesto declares solidarity with Ukraine, commitment to democratic change in Belarus, and a principled refusal of submissions from state-funded projects in either country. Biennial and now in its third edition, Red Heather recognises fiction and documentary films by Belarusian directors working both in Belarus and in exile, across fifteen categories. Each edition has been a different kind of institutional act. The inaugural cycle ran online from autumn 2021 to spring 2022, with the founders working without a venue or a budget, delivering the diplomas themselves. In February 2024, the second edition was staged inside the European Film Market at the Berlinale. The third opened at the Luna cinema in Warsaw in February 2026. Perhaps most importantly, as Irena Kaciałovič (Irėna Katsialovich) tells us, the award functions as a community hub, a site of “absolute, unconditional love and acceptance of Belarusian cinema”.

We spoke with two of the prize’s co-founders. Irena Kaciałovič is a Belarusian film critic, journalist, and art manager who has built much of the institutional architecture of independent Belarusian cinema in exile. She co-founded Red Heather and BIFA, is a member of FIPRESCI, has served as a Golden Globe Awards voter for three years, and currently acts as deputy representative for cultural matters in the United Transitional Cabinet, the Belarusian government in exile. Her co-founder remains inside Belarus and, for safety reasons, has asked not to be named; in what follows, that person’s voice appears as AC (Anonymous Co-Founder). We spoke about how Red Heather was built, and what it has had to become, edition by edition, to keep going.

VOLHA ISAKAVA (VI) and SASHA RAZOR (SR): How did Red Heather begin? What ideas and people were at the origins of the award?

IRENA KACIAŁOVIČ (IK): The idea of creating a film critics award came to us quite a long time ago – when we were all still living through that period of relative liberalisation in Belarus. At that time, there was a theatre award. We saw it as a good example of how the expert community should evaluate what is happening in cinema. It was around 2018–2019. But we did not implement this idea then – there was no decisive push of the kind that occurred in 2020–2021. The final push, against the backdrop of repressions, was the transfer of the Listapad Film Festival under the auspices of the Belarusfilm studio. We found out then that there would be no national competition.

It is important to note that in the last few years of Listapad, the national competition had become a focal point for local audiences. Belarusian films were drawing sold-out theatres. Filmmakers met with viewers. Life was happening there. It became something quite singular: the main and only international festival in Belarus, drawing attention to national cinema – there was such an expansion of public enthusiasm beyond the professional community. It was clear that there was great demand for national cinema, and accordingly, what happened to the national competition was a major loss. And we thought that at that moment it was necessary to accumulate our expertise and do something: first, to realise a long-standing idea, and second, to at least partially compensate for the losses we were sustaining at that time.

ANONYMOUS CO-FOUNDER (AC): I would add that the idea of the award first emerged primarily as a joke. At that point in time, there were different festivals: first and foremost, Listapad, but also smaller festivals – for example, Cinema Perpetuum Mobile in Minsk. Festivals handed out awards and provided a sense of recognition, of expert evaluation. And a critics’ award was not truly necessary. Still, back in December 2017, we conducted a poll, selected winners in different nominations, did everything seriously, but it did not go beyond a social media post. It was a kind of half-joke for insiders – and that was the release of the first proto-Red Heather, then called Golden Gooseberry (Zalaty Ahrest). And then, the pressure on our film community, its collapse, led to the dire situation with even fewer film experts, even fewer media platforms. The filmmaking community lost its arbitration mechanisms. And we decided that we needed to step up and perform this function.

VI and SR: Over the course of the award’s existence, what, in your view, have been the most significant achievements, and, conversely, the major challenges?

IK: I think one achievement was the substantial leap between our first and second editions. The first Red Heather we conducted online. We had no resources for an award ceremony. We had a minimal budget from an anonymous source, and it was largely spent on the awards themselves – the diplomas, which we then personally handed over.

The second edition of Red Heather was organised within the European Film Market (EFM) at the Berlinale. We were listed in the official EFM programme. That required significantly more funding, more fundraising, and more effort overall. It also came with certain challenges: our ceremony took place on a Saturday evening, which meant intense competition for attention within an event of such scale, one of the three main, most saturated film markets. But it was a necessary platform for us – we wanted to set a high bar, to connect our award with distinguished names in world cinema, and to establish ourselves as a major event for Belarusian cinema. This way, we managed to inscribe ourselves into a broader context.

Another challenge is that we – the film critics’ community – are losing our expertise, our experience, and our platforms. Red Heather cannot substitute for the entirety of our profession. Film criticism cannot live only in the work of the jury of a Belarusian film award. The fact remains that it is difficult for us to maintain the prestige of critical expertise when we lack platforms, when we lack film industry anchor points. It is not just about Red Heather, but we do try to compensate for this with the awards.

AC: Another challenge is working outside Belarus. Even though it would be easier, both in terms of safety and organisation, not to work with people who are in Belarus, we continue cooperation on principle, until we can no longer. This principled stance comes with its own host of difficulties, such as safety, which we try to take care of as much as possible. Thank God we have not been designated as an extremist organisation. This makes it somewhat easier to interact with filmmakers and critics working in Belarus.

Red Heather does have a political position. Even though we do not engage in continuous political declarations, our manifesto on the website states our position regarding the situation in Belarus and regarding the war between Russia and Ukraine. Furthermore, we will not cooperate with those film critics who collaborate with state media. As a result, some filmmakers who are in Belarus are hesitant to be considered for our awards out of fear.

VI and SR: Considering all these challenges, with work being done on both sides of the border, how do you build trust in the award for all participants? What kind of policies help make Red Heather decisions transparent?

IK: We are thinking through every detail of this long process, which lasts nine months, from collecting submissions to voting. We also orient ourselves toward our experience of serving on other juries (we are both members of the Golden Globes). We look at how it is done and choose the best practices that work in our situation.

Ours is a close-knit community, and trust is built at least partially by those members who represent the awards to the public. In this sense, these public figures are Taras Tarnalitsky (Taras Tarnalitski) and I.² That is one component. The second component is the jury of the awards. Here, we ensure the entire process is transparent and uniform: we track and keep all the documentation; we only accept voting in the format on which we agreed.

As for the awards criteria – this is an interesting question! We are in the process of re-evaluating the criteria for the jury members. After all, there are scholars, journalists, and film critics on the jury, and their criteria differ. We absolutely rely on the expertise of the jury that votes. And now, we are considering our role as guides for the jury across different disciplinary considerations. Currently, we do not provide uniform criteria to the jury: everyone votes according to their own professional expertise. But when it comes to more general messages – some of which may, in a sense, be political messages, messages from the film critics’ community, from the Belarusian film awards – I believe we will need greater collective involvement in these discussions.

AC: It is also very important that we try to adhere as strictly as possible to our own regulations. We thought them through and discussed them at length. Every change is introduced not in the middle of the awards season, but after the season ends. One cannot deviate from the rules – it will snowball – and, in the end, result in dissatisfaction with the awards. We all try to operate according to clearly defined and transparent rules.

The broader public can learn about us through our website and through media materials. We try to consult and agree in maximum detail on what appears on our website, what texts are published, and how they are formulated. We produce press releases and try to ensure that the media do not deviate from our information. We also strive to maintain constant communication with jury members. When questions arise, we attempt to respond as promptly and thoroughly as possible.

IK: Our community is small – everyone knows each other – and we build trust by involving people in our process. Of course, not in the voting and selection process itself. But, for us, the cornerstone is the awards ceremony, which we try to make into a celebration of Belarusian cinema. Celebration of our cinema in all its contradictions. It is an event of absolute, unconditional acceptance and love for Belarusian cinema. And everyone is invited.

At the Berlinale, people carpooled from Warsaw, coordinated trips to Berlin to join the ceremony, just to be there, to see it with their own eyes, to celebrate, and to rejoice for those who received awards. The largest Belarusian delegation in history attended our last awards ceremony, and people made it happen by supporting each other. It is an event where everyone is “one of us”. People even started placing bets on who would win Red Heather. Everyone was involved in one shared process. I hope we can preserve this spirit of community.

VI and SR: How do you maintain contact with those who remain and work inside Belarus? How does anonymity work in your processes?

IK: There are no restrictions for nominations other than those stipulated by our regulations. That is to say, whether you live in Belarus or outside Belarus, we invite everyone to apply. Practically speaking, during the application stage, one of our colleagues works with and personally invites as many filmmakers as possible to submit applications.

From that point on, our approach differs for jury members and participants. Jury members who live in Belarus are anonymous by default. As for the participants, we do not impose anonymity on them but rely on their choice – whether they are ready to go public or not. In that regard, it is different for everyone. The application form asks each participant to indicate their desire to remain anonymous. After that, I personally confirm this point with every applicant, because sometimes mistakes happen. And during these personal conversations, other concerns might arise. Everyone makes their own individual decision that results in us including or not including them publicly in the longlist. And then, before publishing the shortlist, I reach out and confirm participants’ status again. All our processes are cyber-secure – access to questionnaires, to films and filmmakers’ information, links, etc., is restricted, given the risks of phishing and hacking.

As to awarding the anonymous participants, we do not yet know the exact procedure – this has not happened yet. If it happens, we will have a conversation with the specific filmmaker. In any case, if our award ceremony is a public event, filmmakers who wish to remain anonymous will not come onto the stage – this will be handled by the hosts within the ceremony, and then we will arrange for the winners to have their awards.

AC: A very important safety consideration for us is to ensure that the person who communicates with the applicants and who collects nominations and other data must necessarily be located outside Belarus. We cannot allow the responsibility for all this information to be on the shoulders of one person who is in Belarus and who could potentially be detained. And this is not even necessarily because of their involvement with Red Heather – we know of cases when people were detained for attending a film club or for something unrelated to filmmaking altogether. In cases of state persecution, computers and phones are usually confiscated. Therefore, we strictly adhere to the rule that all communication is handled by people outside Belarus.

VI and SR: How has Belarusian cinema been responding to the events of 2020 over the past five years? How do you see a difference between documentary and feature cinema responses?

AC: First and foremost, documentary cinema responses. At first, there were numerous online videos that documented the events, and then films began to be made immediately. It is important to note that many participants in the protests became directors and witnesses, both of the protests and of the subsequent repression. A vast array of video material was uploaded online, to various Telegram channels and to YouTube. At our last ceremony in 2024, we had a special mention going to the “Collective Witness”: “For the numerous testimonies – amateur and professional, accidental and intentional, in writing, video, or any other medium – of events after the 2020 presidential election in Belarus, which make up the country’s historical records and become part of the nation’s culture.”

After some time, documentary films attempted to formulate an understanding of the events of 2020, metaphorically or analytically. We can recall Mara (Sasha Kulak, 2022, France, U.K.) or [Metadychka] / Handbuch / Handbook (Pavel Mozhar, 2021, Germany) – the former film being more metaphorical and poetic, the latter more analytical.³ But it is, first and foremost, documentary cinema that responded and continues to respond most directly.

Feature films, for several reasons, could not respond as quickly. Primarily, because the film industry does not have the resources to make films quickly and efficiently, especially in exile. In addition, to be more specific, when many directors were forced to flee the country, documentary filmmakers could later montage their materials. Directors working in feature film did not have such an opportunity. This is a purely practical factor that dictated the delay in response.

The first Belarusian feature film that addressed the protests and the repressions that followed was A Kid’s Flick (Nikita Lavretski (Mikita Laŭretski), 2021, Belarus).⁴ When we look at this film, we see that approaching the topic of the protests directly was a complex task – Belarusian directors felt not only that it was a difficult subject matter, but that there was a great responsibility. A Russian director who made the film MINSK (Boris Guts, 2022, Estonia) felt neither the responsibility nor had problems with financing. He made the film, showcased it at festivals, and so to speak, forgot about it. By contrast, Belarusian directors approached this topic very cautiously, often in a roundabout way – first, there was Lavretski’s A Kid’s Flick, and then [Spatkanne ŭ Minsku] / Svidanie v Minske / / A Date in Minsk (Nikita Lavretski, 2022, Belarus).⁵ In that film, the subject of the protests is only talked about, and even then, not directly. Over time, feature films appeared in which we see the protests in a more direct light, represented as they were, with Belarusian directors trying to emotionally re-live these events and to rethink them.

IK: For documentary cinema, there is now a major problem with the material, with everything that was shot in Belarus. Because it is dangerous to show real people, they can only be shown by blurring over half the screen or even most of the screen. I have seen this with my own eyes. Five years have already passed, and in today’s conditions, filming is possible only in great secrecy. It is still possible, and films are being made, but the question arises of how and when to show them.

Today, documentary cinema in exile is trying to find workarounds as much as possible. Filmmakers use animation, blurring, and everything at their disposal because either footage simply does not exist, or it is dangerous to show it. Andrei Kutsila is doing this, for example, with his new film Listy / Letters about correspondence with political prisoners.⁶ This film also reflects on the protests of 2020, because 2020 is not just what happened in that year. I think we are still living through its consequences. And in that regard, everything about our reality reflected in cinema is about 2020.

As for feature films, we still have only a small sample for analysis, so I can talk about projects in the works. Each year, we receive several dozen applications to the Belarusian Independent Film Academy (BIFA) when we organise the pitching presentation at the Berlinale. Those submissions are very interesting examples of rethinking the trauma we have experienced. Often, these are stories about immigration. At one point, we considered four or five women’s stories about forced immigration to different countries because of the events of 2020. This is our working through trauma – what we felt, where we have found ourselves now, who helps us live through it, and where it all leads. These projects fall into the psychological drama category, often with clear character transformations from beginning to end.

The most interesting examples of feature films are yet to emerge – they exist only on paper, in the pitching format, with filmmakers trying to find funding. Cinema, especially feature cinema, currently has little opportunity to be realised: it is difficult to make films in Europe, to look for opportunities without documents, without legalisation, without citizenship, compromising one’s vision and rights. And within Belarus, we simply do not have the ability to film in a safe format. Therefore, feature cinema is needed here, but there is no money for it, because it is expensive. There are films by Mara Tamkovich and Andrei Kashperski, I hope we will see more.⁷

AC: I would like to add two more key documentary examples that also demonstrate the difficulties of feature films. The first is [Radzima] / Motherland (Alexander Mihalkovich [Aliaksandr Mikhalkovich] and Hanna Badziaka, 2023, Sweden, Norway, Ukraine) [EN: winner of the 2026 Red Heather Award for Best Documentary Feature Film, Best Director, and Best Cinematography, reviewed in this volume]. This is a film that clearly shows the situation in Belarusian documentary cinema. We can observe that the directors initially wanted to make a different project [about army hazing] unrelated to the politics of future protests, and then, life itself reworked their project through the protests. The film changes narratively, forcing the filmmakers to find alternative ways to tell the story. In this film, some scenes had to be staged, and letters from the army by one of the directors are used as material.

The second film is Ulysses (Nikita Lavretski, 2024, Belarus). This is a film by a director who primarily works in feature film and wants to talk about Belarus. The only way for him to do that is to turn to the materials made by others – here, these materials are personal videos of Ruslan Zgolich (Ruslan Zholich).⁸ Both films find indirect paths, both lead to results worthy of attention, and both equally testify to the impossibility of working directly with the themes with which filmmakers want to work.

IK: I think that new ways to speak about 2020 will be films about identity, about self-identification, about the search for new reference points. We can recall Siarhei Kavaliou’s (Siarheĭ Kavalioŭ) new project Nevialikaia razmova / Small Talk (in development), in which his small son, who has spoken Belarusian since early childhood, is the protagonist [the film is also a road movie where the child travels to talk to people whose languages are disappearing or are under threat]. The film presents an attempt to ground oneself, to find one’s identity. I think that this direction will now inevitably develop.

AC: This can also be found in world cinema – Chilean directors, many of whom once had to leave their country, sought their own ways of speaking about it. For example, Raúl Ruiz and his Diálogos de exiliados / Dialogues of Exiles (1975, France), and many other films. At first, they tried to find ways to shoot underground cinema, but over time, films about identity and exile became important. I think that for some time, this will be the future of Belarusian cinema. Let us hope not for as long a time as it was for the Chilean filmmakers.

VI and SR: Red Heather is connected to canon-building projects such as the Top 50 Belarusian Movies lists. Why is it important now to create a canon?

IK: Canons are part of the national heritage in a broad sense. We can observe turning to heritage and the need to preserve in almost all artistic fields, including archives, libraries, and so on. In exile, this is felt very strongly, especially now, when the shock of 2020 has passed, and everyone has started to search for their reference points, their self-identity, their differences from the contexts and cultures in which they find themselves. This provokes the emergence of many projects focused on creating archives, documentation, research, cataloguing, digitisation, and so forth. This is a natural impulse, apparent in cinema and beyond.

The ruptures in Belarusian cinema have always meant serious problems in connection to heritage. Each generation arrived anew and believed it was creating something unique, without understanding the continuity within the context of Belarusian cinema. This lack of continuity, ruptures in heritage, and the absence of a school ring constant alarm bells in the history of our cinema.

In this sense, the creation of a canon, the writing of this history as a continuous and coherent one, is important. There are fifty great Belarusian films out there. ⁹ What we at Red Heather are trying to do – the summaries, the longlists of the awards we produce – is part of the history we want to do right by, reflect on, and preserve. Because film criticism also includes the preservation of history, the rethinking of what is being created, so that it does not simply disappear after a theatrical release.

The project of the Top 50 films is curated by Nikita Lavretski. He has done colossal work. It creates the prestige of cinematic heritage, the one to which it will certainly be prestigious to belong. And new filmmakers will be interested in the history they are continuing and what they can contribute to it. This implies greater responsibility and greater creativity.

AC: There is an interesting moment here: this new wave of interest in canons, in lists, is emerging in Belarus against the background of a movement against canons in the West. One of the most famous articles is Elena Gorfinkel’s essay “Against Lists”.¹⁰ She is a wonderful film scholar and critic, and the article is important – but it comes from a Western perspective.

It is too early for us to oppose lists. No canon was created throughout the entire existence of Belarusian cinema, including in the BSSR. Pre-revolutionary Belarusian cinema did exist, but after these ruptures, all materials were either lost or disappeared. The tradition was interrupted many times – first by the revolution, then by the war. Then the Soviet Union ends, again there is a collapse in the film industry, again the tradition is interrupted.

To a significant extent, revolutionary Belarusian cinema was Jewish cinema. Many cinemas in the early 20th-century Belarusian cities and towns were owned by Jews, and accordingly, they filmed both Jewish-themed and Belarusian-themed works. But few films and filmmakers survived, and those who did left. Now there are no resources to search for them, and it remains unknown whether anything even still exists. Nitrate film can be preserved for a time, but its decay can only be delayed, not prevented. With each year, the chance of finding these materials decreases. Sometimes one can accidentally find and see these materials. In one of the films by the experimental American filmmaker Bill Morrison, there are fragments of these films – of a Belarus we have not seen.¹¹ But we do not have these materials in Belarus; nothing like this exists in our cinema museum [Museum of the History of Belarusian Cinema].

Among people who care about Belarusian cinema, there is interest in recovering the heritage. There is a vast legacy of Soviet cinema, for example, but for someone who is an ordinary cinephile, it is not especially appealing to wade into this voluminous archive to find something that can, first, be called fully Belarusian, and second, is, in principle, worth watching. Here, lists, articles, and video projects made by individual critics come to the rescue. Thus, this interest in heritage and canon is entirely natural and will continue. Work with identity requires turning to memory, to what has already been done. One feeds the other.

IK: Red Heather and the rankings of Belarusian films we are talking about are but a small part of what needs to be done urgently and now. A major problem is that our film heritage is not digitised. When I organised a silent film festival in Warsaw and was searching for 1927 [Prastytutka] / Prostitutka / The Prostitute by Oleg Frelikh¹², it turned out that the film does not exist in a digitised format in Belarus. It exists on film only at Belarusfilm because it was restored there, and was inaccessible to me. And I did not want to ask the main archive in Russia. I had to find The Prostitute in Norway.

This is a striking demonstration of the state of cinematic heritage in Belarus. It never occurred to anyone that copies of Belarusian films should be retrieved from Russia. And in today’s perilous political climate, this is even more urgent. There are so many challenges and so much work to be done – and finding ways to do this work in exile is a vast project.

AC: There is an interesting detail about The Prostitute: it had long been forgotten and mentioned only in reference books. It became possible to see it in some form thanks to the efforts of Andrei Skuratovich, who unfortunately passed away far too early, in April 2020.¹³ He digitised many Belarusian films using his own funds and crowdfunding. He travelled to archives in Russia and brought films back. When he did this, it was impossible to make high-quality copies, but at least the films were retrieved from oblivion thanks to the efforts of one person and those who supported him. None of them was connected to state institutions.

And now, despite all the rhetoric about the continuity of Soviet heritage, state institutions are absolutely indifferent to Belarusian Soviet cinema. But thanks to the efforts of engaged individuals at Belarusfilm, Soviet Belarusian cinema is being digitised for public access – for example, recently on the Belarusfilm YouTube channel they released the postmodern film from the Belarusian 1990s [Shalionai zharstsiu ty sama da miane palaesh] / Bezumnoi strastʹiu ty sama ko mne pylaeshʹ / You Burn with Mad Passion for Me (Nikolai Knyazev (Mikalaĭ Kniazeŭ), 1991, BSSR). Incidentally, this is the first time it can be seen in a quality that is not so terrible. But within state institutions, such cases are few and far between.

VI and SR: How does Red Heather help filmmakers apart from recognition? Does it help with contacts, screenings, distribution, or professional support?

IK: We do not participate directly in the full trajectory of screening and distribution, only in publicity and visibility. We support screenings of the films at other festivals and venues. Also, when we organise an award ceremony, there is value in networking; there are invited guests who see what Belarusian cinema has to offer.

Even if we wanted to do much more, we cannot afford it – fundraising is not becoming easier as time passes. Under ideal conditions, if we worked within a full-fledged film industry, Red Heather would include educational seminars, workshops, and a full-fledged film criticism ecosystem. There is a lot of potential to include screenings and cooperation with other festivals and online platforms, but there are insufficient resources to realise these goals. We can acknowledge this with sadness, but also note that things can develop in different directions, at least I hope so.

AC: For today’s generation of film critics, Red Heather has brought together groups that previously had no opportunity to intersect. Journalists rarely crossed paths with those engaged in film criticism; then there were academics and cultural scholars, people of different generations. Thanks to Red Heather, they learned about each other and established connections.

Even for some jury members, being part of Red Heather served as an impetus to pay even more attention to Belarusian cinema in their professional interests. For example, Max Zhbankou (Maksim Zhbankoŭ), a cultural scholar, film critic, and media educator, created a video series for the centenary of Belarusian cinema after becoming involved with Red Heather (not necessarily solely because of it). In the YouTube series #стогодкіно / #Hundred Years of Belarusian Cinema, he sits down to watch Belarusian classics and analyses them; he felt that there was a certain demand, that this heritage was of interest to someone.

IK: In reference to your question, a film award also motivates people to stay in the profession; this realisation is based on personal conversations with authors who received awards. I remember very well a comment from Artem Lobach (Artsiom Lobach).¹⁴ He received a diploma and said that it gave him a reason to keep trying (this is not a verbatim quote). What struck me then was that even an online award had meaning for the filmmakers, because they are absolutely lost in this vast European context in which many are forcibly finding themselves.

VI and SR: How do you see the future of the award and the future of Belarusian cinema under conditions of repression and exile, or under conditions of political change?

IK: Under conditions of exile and repression, the criteria for what is Belarusian cinema, for the very concept of it, will change. It depends on how long this situation continues, but our working definitions, along with our policies and rules regarding juries, critics, researchers, and potential participants, will change in one way or another.

I believe that cinema is an expensive art form and one that takes time. There was a period when filmmakers needed years simply to orient themselves in their new reality. We will see more creative work about Belarus. What topics – that is another question, similar to the question about the criteria to use to classify films as Belarusian.

I would like Red Heather to expand its working methods and formats. I hope to organise masterclasses and professional workshops, and to raise professional standards and help people orient themselves in a new reality. Different countries have different contexts and require different practical skills and knowledge. Red Heather could support the filmmakers in this direction. And in case of changes in Belarus, I hope Red Heather will become part of the film industry with all the appropriate positive results – when a film award implies not only prestige, recognition, and motivation, but also concrete industry outcomes, such as distribution, partnerships, agreements, and contracts. This is the ideal within a regular film industry. I hope this is our award’s future.

AC: The award was conceived as a form of crisis support for the filmmaking community. It is important to note that we cannot say with certainty how this situation will continue, for how long, and if we will be able to fully maintain our operations, although we will make every effort.

As for a potential future after positive changes, I see Red Heather, like Irena does, as part of the film industry. And personally, in that case, I would move into “opposition” and establish a new award where film critics would engage exclusively with non-professional cinema. My love lies with minority, amateur, and all kinds of “non-standard” cinema.

Right now, all Belarusian filmmakers find themselves in forced conditions of exile, regardless of style or vision. An underground director like Nikita Lavretski continues to make films much as he did before – his approach to filmmaking does not require a film industry. But he would probably also not object to making a film with a big budget. Other directors are accustomed to working in more studio-based, professional conditions. And those people are not in the situation they would like to be in.

We are now in a situation like this: you are rowing somewhere in a boat, there is fog everywhere, you see nothing, there is a hole in the boat, and you are frantically bailing out water just to get somewhere, and you do not know where, nor whether you will actually get there. But we will persevere and continue to work as long as possible.

Volha Isakava
Central Washington University
Volha.Isakava@cwu.edu

Sasha Razor
University of California, Santa Barbara
sasharazor@ucsb.edu

Bio

Irena Kaciałovič is a Belarusian film critic, journalist, and cultural manager living in exile in Poland, and a member of the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI). Her work focuses on independent and documentary cinema and the institutions that sustain national filmmaking under repression and emigration. She co-founded the Belarusian Independent Film Academy and the Red Heather critics’ award, has served on festival juries across Europe, and has been a voter for the Golden Globes. She has written for Zvyazda, Nasha Niva, Radio Svaboda, Belsat, and Deutsche Welle. Her current focus is the diasporic circulation of Belarusian film and the criticism that frames it.

Volha Isakava is a Professor and Chair in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Central Washington University, United States. Her research interests include popular visual culture and cinema of East Slavic countries, transnational genre cinema, and horror film in particular. Her latest publications are on horror cinema in Belarus, war in Ukraine on film, and screen representations of drag queens in Russia. Her current research is on contemporary Belarusian underground cinema.

Sasha Razor is a Lecturer in Film and Media Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, United States, specialising in East European and Russophone cinemas. Her research interests include silent film, minor cinemas, digital authoritarianism, and the cinema and visual culture of protest. Razor is a curator, journalist, and co-founder of the Russophone Los Angeles Research Collective. Her current research is on Belarusian cinema after 2020 and its exile and digital circulation.

Filmography

Frelikh, Oleg. 1927. [Prastytutka] / Prostitutka / The Prostitute. Belgoskino.

Guts, Boris. 2022. MINSK. Leo Films.

Kashperski, Andrei and Mikhail Zui. 2023. [Pratsėsy] / Protsessy / Processes. Belsat.

Kavaliou, Siarhei. In development. Nevialikaia razmova / Small Talk.

Knyazev, Nikolai. 1991. [Shalionai zharstsiu ty sama da miane palaesh] / Bezumnoi strastʹiu ty sama ko mne pylaeshʹ / You Burn with Mad Passion for Me. Belarusfilm.

Kulak, Sasha. 2022. Mara. Les Steppes.

Kutsila, Andrei. In post-production. Listy / Letters [working title]. DocEdu Foundation, inselfilm produktion, Moonmakers.

Lavretski, Nikita. 2021. A Kid’s Flick. Self-produced.

Lavretski, Nikita. 2022. [Spatkanne ŭ Minsku] / Svidanie v Minske / A Date in Minsk. Self-produced.

Lavretski, Nikita. 2025. Ulysses. Self-produced.

Lobach, Artem. 2020. [Daroha dadomu] / Doroga dаmoi / Way Home. Self-produced.

Mihalkovich, Alexander and Hanna Badziaka. 2023. [Radzima] / Motherland . Sisyfos Film Production, Voka Films, Folk Film.

Morrison, Bill. 2014. Back to the Soil. Hypnotic Pictures.

Mozhar, Pavel. 2021. [Metadychka] / Handbuch / Handbook. Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf.

Ruiz, Raúl. 1975. Diálogos de exiliados / Dialogues of Exiles. Capital Films.

Tamkovich, Mara. 2024. [Pad shėrym nebam ] / Pod szarym niebem / Under the Grey Sky. Media Corporation.

Suggested Citation

Isakava, Volha and Sasha Razor. 2026. “Red Heather That Grew From Concrete: An Interview with the Co-Founders of the Belarusian Film Critics’ Award Red Heather”. Belarusian Cinema and the Protests of 2020: Cinema in Exile (ed. Volha Isakava and Sasha Razor). Special issue of Apparatus. Film, Media and Digital Cultures in Central and Eastern Europe 22. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17892/app.2026.00022.439.

URL: http://www.apparatusjournal.net/

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