Motherland

Synopsis

As young Nikita apprehensively enters his military conscription, Svetlana travels the country looking for justice for her son, murdered while in military training. It is 2020, and activists rage in the street against state-led violence rooted in “dedovshchina”, the cruel abuse that supposedly turns boys into soldiers but is instead the very mechanism of fear and violence the government uses to control its populace.

Director Biography

Alexander Mihalkovich is Belarusian-Ukrainian director and producer. He graduated with a PhD in Library Science and an MA in Film Directing at DocNomads international study program. His focus as a filmmaker is on long-term projects towards which he feels a close personal relationship. Hanna Badziaka is a filmmaker with a background in journalism. She graduated with a Master's degree in Philology from the Belarusian State University in 2010. As a journalist, she focused on social issues and everyday life topics. After gaining extensive experience in creating in-depth video reports, she became interested in documentary filmmaking. She then participated in creating several documentaries.