Swiataja Wada

36 days before Russia’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine. On another Baptism of Christ holiday an ice hole was made in a pond in a bedroom suburb of Kyiv. Church bells are heard on the shore, people are undressing, standing in line… In this short observational film, closeups of people of different ages, lines of naked bodies and short conversations tell us about the fragility of life, the contradictions of human faith and the joy of existence.

Andrei Kutsila

Filmmaker with over ten documentaries to his credit. In 2007 he got a degree in Journalism from the Belarusian State University, and two years later graduated from the Belarusian State Academy of Arts. His documentary When Flowers Are Not Silent (2021) focused on women and his own sister, incarcerated during the protests in Belarus, got Best Documentary Feature Award at Warsaw Film Festival. In 2021 Andrei left Belarus, and since then he lives and works in Poland.