Short film "Live" with an award at the festival in Chicago
Mary Tamkovich’s short film “Live”, co-financed by the Polish Film Institute, won the Silver Hugo Award at the Chicago International Film Festival. Earlier, it was awarded at the 47th Polish Film Festival in Gdynia. In the near future, the production will also take part in festival competitions in Tehran, Bilbao and Leeds.
Every year, the Chicago International Film Festival presents a selection of the best short films from around the world. The cinema screening of “Live” took place as part of the competition block of shorts, and thanks to the support of the Polish Film Institute in the screening on October 22 this year. the director of the film could attend.
The picture qualified for three more international competitions, including two qualifying for Oscar nominations. The first is Tehran International Short Film Festival and the second is International Festival of Documentary and Short Film of Bilbao – an international class A festival recognized by FIAPF, which also selects a candidate for the European Short Film Award 2023. In addition, “Live” will be shown as part of Leeds International Film Festival, which in turn qualifies to apply for the BAFTA award.
Film description
A peaceful demonstration in Minsk, commemorating Raman Bandarenka, who was beaten to death, is brutally pacified by the militia. The world learns about it thanks to the transmission of journalists from the independent Belarusian television, who are the only ones who provide live information about the course of events. For security reasons, they report from the windows of one of the nearby apartments. When the services start shooting protesters and the women are tracked by a militia drone, they have little time to decide whether to continue their mission despite the risk. – I wanted to transform the story of the girls from the next news about repression in Belarus into a story about living people, let them feel their tension, fear, but also determination. I wanted the viewers to experience those fifteen minutes that were crucial for their lives together with the characters, to feel how terribly difficult the decision they had to make was – and at the same time how much they could not make another one – says the director.
The plot of the film is inspired by the true story of two journalists from the independent Belarusian television Belsat TV. Katsiaryna Andreeva (real name Katerina Bakhvalova) and Daria Chultsova were detained on November 15, 2020 in Minsk and charged with “organizing and preparing activities grossly violating public order”, which, according to the Belarusian criminal code, is punishable by up to three years in prison. On February 18, 2021, they were sentenced to two years in a penal colony. Katsiaryna was supposed to be released on September 5, 2022, but on July 13 she was sentenced by the regime to 8 years in prison for “high treason”. The trial took place behind closed doors and the case was kept secret. Daria Chultsova has been free for several weeks now.