Scandinavian premiere:
Femida - Themisas a lady of Loose Morals
"I survived scoundrels like Stalin and Hitler, but I have never seen a fascism like Lukashenko’s." The desperate man’s words have no visible effect on the uniformed policeman. In the next image we see Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, making a TV speech threatening to arrest all who dare to defy him.
Since coming to power nearly 14 years ago Lukashenko has dissolved the parliament, re-written the constitution, and postponed elections—which he has then won with astounding margins. Journalists and opponents have been arrested, kidnapped, and murdered.
In Femida the documentary filmmaker Viktar Dashuk compares the current regime’s patterns of behaviour to the twisted logic of a psychopathic murderer – they both write their own laws and only act according to their own interests. Time and time again we see how the president’s special police break the law, how every protest is met with hard-boiled smiles only to then be beaten down with raging violence. How can such tyranny still be allowed to exist in central Europe?
But the film also shows at close range a people in whom fury over these injustices is always bubbling just under the surface, in whom the will to change and improve overcomes the fear of unreasonableness violence.
Because of his films Viktar Dashuk has been relieved of all his duties at the university in Minsk. We are proud to be able to present him as a VIP guest at our film festival.
