MOTHERLAND

Sweden 2023 (92 min.)

A journey into the causes and consequences of the decades-old “tradition” of violent bullying, torture and murder as a means of control over Belarusian military conscripts. When young Nikita reports for compulsory military duty in 2020, he enters a generations-old tradition that hides a deadly secret in post-Soviet Belarus: dedovshchina, the practice of violent abuse and bullying that supposedly turns boys into men but which has instead created generational trauma deeply embedded in the country’s present-day culture and identity. Nikita and Svetlana’s stories also frame a rage in the streets against the state-led violence hat has become the very mechanism of fear the government uses to control its populace.

“An ominous portrait of the oppressive culture of cruelty in Post-Soviet Belarus.” –Jessica Klang, Variety