Belarusian documentary filmmaker Yury Khashchavatski has died. Friends of the acclaimed director, screenwriter and editor announced his death on social media on Thursday.
Yury Khashchavatski was known for his high-profile documentary films, including “An Ordinary President”, “The Square”, “Lobotomy”, “This Crazy, Crazy, Crazy ‘Russian World'”, as well as “Orange Vests”, “To Live to Love” and “Caucasian Captives”.
Yury Khashchavatski was born in Odesa in 1947.
He graduated from the Odesa Technological Institute and the Leningrad State Institute of Theatre, Music and Cinematography. He worked as a director at Beltorghreklama from 1976, at Belarusian Television from 1978, at Belarusian Telefilm from 1985 and at the Belarusfilm studio from 1989.
After the release of the documentary “An Ordinary President”, which sharply criticised the methods used by Aliaksandr Lukashenka to maintain power, Khashchavatski came under repression. During the 1990s and 2000s, he worked with the Tatsiana studio team and later with the Belsat television channel.
He was a member of the Eurasian Television Academy, a recipient of the Berlin International Film Festival Peace Film Award, the Andrei Sakharov Prize of the Russian Union of Writers, and the Grand Prix at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival in New York.
He was awarded the “100 Years of the Belarusian People’s Republic” medal.
In 2019, the director published his book “Vospitaniye Chertey” (“Raising Devils”) in Minsk. He continued to live in Minsk after 2020.
The director was 78.
