Collateral comedy spins out from underneath the repression and violence charted in this sobering documentary that follows three indefatigable women

There are many symptoms of totalitarian sickness gripping Alexander Lukashenko’s Belarus. You risk being arrested for wearing red and white together, the colours of the outlawed flag of the country’s opposition movement. Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four has been banned, which seems rather on the nose. But these are just some of the more farcical elements, the collateral comedy spinning from the deep repression, violence and psychological wounds charted in this sobering film that follows a trio of Belarusian activists, starting from the pandemic through to the invasion of Ukraine.

Director Juliane Tutein fashions a melancholic mood-piece which chronicles ineffectualness in the face of impregnable state machinery, and the meaning of resistance under such circumstances. Nina, who is 74, is a kind of Belarusian Batman; an indefatigable symbol of protest who is immune to repression because of her fame. Human rights activist Darya runs her organisation in exile in Vilnius after student activism landed her in hot water. Tanya has stuck it out near Minsk while her husband and son have fled to Kyiv, but her human-rights NGO and film festival are in the authorities’ crosshairs.