Andrei Kutsila’s Belarusian film “Letters” wins the Golden Dove at DOK Leipzig

The documentary "Letters" ("Pisma") by Belarusian director Andrei Kutsila has won the Golden Dove, the main award of the international feature-length documentary competition at the DOK Leipzig festival in Germany. The film was also given the special MDR Documentary Award.

The film has also made the shortlist for the 2027 European Film Awards in the Best Documentary category. Earlier, at the Venice festival, it received The Impact Golden Globes Prize for Documentary.

The film received the MDR award on 31 October at the 69th DOK Leipzig festival of documentary and animated film, as an outstanding Eastern European documentary. The prize money is 3000 euros.

The award was established in 1995 by the German broadcaster Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk. It is not among the festival's main competition prizes and is regarded as a partner award.

The Golden Dove is the top prize of the international feature-length documentary competition. The festival was founded in 1955 and is considered one of the oldest in the world.

The citation for the award says that, through the experience of men and women, those who speak, draw and fight, the film turns testimony into resistance (translation). The jury also singled out the director, who refuses to let the country disappear from view (translation).

"Letters" had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September. There the film received The Impact Golden Globes Prize for Documentary.

The film is built on the personal stories, letters and testimonies of people who went through repression and imprisonment or were forced to leave their homeland. At its centre are the fates of five people, among them the story of Vitold Ashurak, who died in a penal colony. The prison drawings and diaries of a young artist and student formed the basis of the animated sequences.

According to Kutsila himself, the film is an attempt to tell the story of modern Belarus through the letters, diaries and voices of Belarusians who have been repressed, imprisoned or exiled: about pain, dreams and the price of those dreams. The question of sacrifice, he added, each person decides for themselves.

The festival organisers described the film as an act of resistance through the experiences of Belarusians (translation). Another assessment, in the responses received, calls it a "collection of testimony to the horror taking place in the very heart of Europe" (translation).

Kutsila worked on the film for more than five years. It was made as an international co-production: the German company Inselfilm Produktion, the Polish foundation Doc Edu Foundation and the Lithuanian film company Moonmakers took part.

Kutsila was born in Baranavichy, graduated from the Faculty of Journalism at the Belarusian State University and studied at the Belarusian State Academy of Arts.

This is not the director's first award. In November 2022 his film about flowers won the documentary competition at the Warsaw Film Festival. In December 2022 he received the Grand Prix of the "Man in Danger" festival in Łódź.

A film that gives a voice to those who were forced into silence has been heard and highly rated beyond the country's borders, which makes the recognition all the more significant, the authors of a response to the award believe (translation).