Espejo: Cool (News from Belarus)
Se proyecta con Lúa, techno y lo que queda de él
program information
director:
Nikita Lavretski
production:
Nikita Lavretski
cinematography:
Yuliya Shatun
script:
Nikita Lavretski, Volha Kavaliova
editing:
Nikita Lavretski
sound:
Yuliya Shatun
Critical text
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
BIOGRAPHY
Nikita Lavretski was born in 1994 in Minsk, Belarus. In 2018 he completed a master's degree in film studies at the Belarusian State Academy of Arts in Minsk. His first feature film, "Belarusian Psycho", won the award for best Belarusian film in 2015 at the Listapad International Film Festival in Minsk.
11 – 16JUNIO 2023
11 – 16 JUNIO 2024