MOTHERLAND

Svetlana doesn't believe her son committed suicide while completing his military service, as the official version would have it. Now, she is fighting to bring her son's murderers to justice, and to put an end to the brutal hazing practices within the Belarusian army that claimed her son's life. Elsewhere in Belarus, Nikita still lives with his father; he likes going out to party with friends but is about to be called up to serve in the military too. Soon, however, protests following the re-election of Alexandr Lukashenko begin, and with them brutal suppression at the hands of the state, compelling Nikita himself, in the meantime a solider, and his friends to ask themselves: Who does the military serve? What role does it have in society? With their film, Alexander Mihalkovich and Hanna Badziaka provide deep insight into life on the inside of the Belarusian army, a life marked by violence and corruption. At the same time, they shed light on the complex relationship between civil society, the public sphere and state power before and during the mass demonstrations resulting from the Belarusian presidential election of 2020.