The Belarusian Filmmakers' Network (BFN), an initiative aimed at supporting Belarusian filmmakers, will host the market premiere of the feature film Summer of '89 (directed by Vladimir Kozlov) at the European Film Market. The online screening will be held on Feb. 11, at 12:30 pm, at Virtual Cinema 25.

"Summer of '89 is a coming-of-age story set at a time when the Soviet Union was moving towards an inevitable collapse," says Kozlov. "While the characters happened to grow up at a time of major changes in their country, their emotions, aspirations and insecurities are typical of youth in general."

About the film

Summer of '89 is set in late July of 1989 in the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic, which was then part of the Soviet Union. Five seventeen-year-old secondary school graduates go on a camping trip after completing their university entrance exams, which some of them passed and some failed. 

Full of naivete, youthful energy and uncertainty about their future, the characters use this trip as an opportunity to have as much fun as they can. But the trip also comes as a test of their character and emotional maturity on the threshold of adult life.

Belarus, 2022, 82 min.
Written and directed by Vladimir Kozlov
Produced by Leonid Kalitenya, Natalia Bruzhnik and Vladimir Kozlov
Cast: Arina Salyga, Alena Kulikovskaya, Maxim Filatov, Yan Kardash, Ivan Sheiko
Trailer: https://youtu.be/LBEbuZJNoLI
Poster and stills:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15MHrgwqOrtHe_ZSi3qDI5D1MgcjEY68J?usp=sharing

About the director

Vladimir Kozlov is a book author and film director. He was born in Mogilev, an industrial city in what used to be the Belarussian Soviet Socialist Republic and is now the country of Belarus. In his childhood and adolescence, he witnessed the collapse of the Soviet empire, which was later reflected in his book and films.

Kozlov has a dozen of fiction and non-fiction books to his name, many of which have been shortlisted or longlisted for major book prizes.

Since 2013, he has been making indie films, which have been screened and collected awards at various festivals.

About the Belarusian Filmmakers' Network

The Belarusian Filmmakers' Network (BFN) is a collective project open to all Belarusian filmmakers, based on professional rather than political lines. BFN unites filmmakers from Belarus, including those who are currently living in exile in Lithuania, Ukraine, Poland and other countries. BFN aims to put Belarusian cinema back on the European film industry's map, doing that transparently and efficiently.

For more information, please, contact us at belfn2022@gmail.com