Януш Гаўрылюк і Андрэй Кудзіненка. Фота: сацсеткі Януша Гаўрылюка.
Belarusian film director Andrei Kudzinenka has left Belarus. The news was announced by his friend and colleague, Bulbamovie festival director Janusz Gawryluk, on his social media page.
According to him, the director is now safe:
“Fortunately, Andrei is now safe. But this story once again shows the conditions in which Belarusian artists are forced to live and work,” Gawryluk wrote.
The persecution of the director was accompanied by intense pressure from the security forces. Searches of his apartment and the private film school “KinaKalaider,” where Kudzinenka served as director, lasted nearly 15 hours. Eight OMON officers and two KGB officers took part in the raids. The director’s passport and phone were confiscated.
Janusz Gawryluk wrote that the security forces threatened the filmmaker with a prison sentence of between eight and 12 years on “extremism” charges.
An important warning: all of Andrei Kudzinenka’s messaging accounts and social media profiles are now under the control of the KGB. Any messages or attempts to make contact in his name may be dangerous.
Despite the difficult situation in the country, Andrei Kudzinenka had remained in Belarus throughout this period. Most recently, he headed and worked at the private Minsk film school “KinaKalaider,” which supported film culture and filmmaking.
Andrei Kudzinenka is a Belarusian film director, screenwriter and actor. He gained widespread recognition with the feature film “Occupation. Mysteries” (2003), a controversial and widely discussed film about World War II. His body of work also includes the first Belarusian supernatural thriller “Massacre” (2010), produced at Belarusfilm, as well as the films “Battle of the Five Armies,” “The Draw,” “Hard Reboot,” and “Fanat.” He is the curator of the multimedia project “Chronotop” and a co-founder of the Bulbamovie festival.