Belarus is often called Europe’s last dictatorship, and this film goes inside a country that has been ruled by Alexander Lukashenko since 1994. Lukashenko, a former collective farm director, built a system that kept much of the Soviet-era economy, suppressed independent media and opposition, and relied on the security services to stay in power. The country looks orderly and clean on the surface, with well-kept cities and subsidised housing, but behind that image lies a state that tolerates little dissent.
The documentary looks at how ordinary Belarusians live under this system: the low wages, the state-controlled jobs, the fear of speaking openly, and the close relationship with Russia that has kept Belarus dependent on Moscow for energy and support. It also examines the opposition figures, journalists and activists who have been jailed, exiled or silenced for challenging Lukashenko, and the role of the KGB, which Belarus kept by name after the Soviet Union collapsed.
This film matters because Belarus is a reminder that authoritarian rule did not end in Europe with the fall of the Berlin Wall. It offers a portrait of a country caught between East and West, and of people who live with the daily reality of a dictatorship that the rest of Europe has largely forgotten.
Belarus
