Northern Lights Nordic-Baltic Film Festival

You think about the roots at least twice
a year
on Independence Day and on Freedom Day
roots are something you don't choose
and something you can never give up on
or forget
even when moving, fleeing or relocating
identity gets even more difficult
identity is fluid, ephemeral
identity shines and shimmers like the skin on a lizard's tail,
which it dropped one day in a moment of a great fright

You can change your identity
you can communicate it through different pronouns
but the most important thing is that you talk about your identity
or you don't - avoiding it, keeping silent
you run away from it, redefine and reinvent it
you can only recreate your identity by going back to the roots
you can only remember who you are by going back to the roots
as if waking up from some deep sleep

Volia Chajkouskaya,
Founder of Northern Lights Film Festival

The Northern Lights Film Festival has remained one of the few film festivals that, despite the pandemic and repression, has not missed a single year and continues to run in the format of an international review, with a carefully curated program, retrospectives, its own manifesto, discussions, and guest stars.

We don't stop day after day, year after year—for nine years now. Because if we stop, it will be challenging to get back into the regular rhythm and impossible to start over from scratch.

We need your support to show incredible films from the Baltics and Scandinavia every year. To introduce Belarusians to Ukrainian cinema as part of the Ukraine Mon Amour program.

To invite a top-notch international jury to watch the Belarusian competition, thereby expanding awareness of the very fact of the existence of Belarusian cinema.

We need your support to talk about Belarusian people through cinema, through the universe of the film festival and the networking opportunities it provides.

To bring Belarus closer to bright changes, to the values of freedom and equality, and to convey its story through the language of cinema and through the lips of renowned foreign directors whose films we feature on Northern Lights.

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