A Date in Minsk

As a dialectical encounter, romantic relationships are a commonplace in contemporary cinema. If we add to this the space-time concentration, we obtain cult titles such as Richard Linklater's "Before" trilogy or Abbas Kiarostami's "Certified Copy". In "A Date in Minsk", Belarusian filmmaker Nikita Lavretski gives a new twist to this approach. Playing the lead couple, Nikita himself and his ex-partner Volha Kavaliova embark on a fictional first date where the real and the fictitious on their lives (and their life together) become blurred as the camera follows them in an impressive almost 90-minute-long single take. Lavretski, a young and hyperactive creator (a whopping eight films in 2022 alone), proposes a mechanism in which psychodrama and social analysis go hand in hand. The logic and intricacies of Tinder, playing pool, Lukashenko, Japanese manga, making films without a budget, the political relationship with Russia and Ukraine, and other conversation topics unfold in a thrilling film that demands new labels to approach it, made with minimal resources (the cinematographer, Yulia Shatun, used only an iPhone to record) and a great abundance of ideas. "A Date in Minsk", winner of the latest DocLisboa festival, is an authentic cinematic ready-made that relies on the spontaneity of new filming techniques to obtain a relevant social and generational portrait. GABRIEL DOMÉNECH