PURE ART

MAKSIM SHVED: This film is an attempt at a new look at present-day Belarus. The main intrigue with an artist painting art on the street of Minsk is just a pretext to show my country from a new perspective. Following in the footsteps of the protagonist, we will learn about different faces of Belarus. We will get to know ordinary people and places far from the “polished” centre. In the film I would like to tackle the image of Belarus as "Europe's last dictatorship". Politics will not be shown directly, but it will be visible from every rectangle and square that covers the forbidden slogans. It will be seen in the sterile shop windows on the spotlessly clean streets and the perfectly bureaucratic offices. Together with the characters, the viewers will gradually discover, step by step, the secret of the intriguing geometric shapes, and thus get drawn deeper and deeper into the lives of ordinary people and the atmosphere of the country. Discovering what lies behind the coloured rectangles on the walls will enable us to actually discover who Belarusians are today, how they live, what they want, what they dream of and what they would like to express if they had full freedom of speech. Through the clash between the street artist and the system, I want to show not only the "red man" crushed by the dictatorship, but also the new generation of Belarusians - bold and uncompromising, and which may soon change the face of the country. In a broader context, it will also be a film about art. I would like to make the viewers think about what contemporary art really is. Why can one coloured square be called art, and another not? What (and who) decides about it? Does it depend on the name and personality of the artist, his ideas, the effort he puts in? Where is the border between real art and chance?