“In the first two days of being screened, the film has been rated 3.5 out of 5 on average by the public: not a bad result. It’s a huge cultural achievement for Belarusian cinema to be screened in America. We’re now waiting to hear how much money has been taken at the box office,” notes the Director General of the Belarusfilm National Film Studio, Oleg Silvanovich.
The film is being shown in three cinemas in Manhattan, provoking interest not only from audiences but the press. The New York Times has devoted a major article to the psychological drama, directed by Belarusian Sergey Loznitsa. In the Fog tells of a man obliged to make choices in amoral circumstances. Set in 1942, on the territory of occupied Belarus, trackwalker Sushchenya is falsely accused of collaboration with the Nazis by two partisans, who come to Sushchenya’s farm to punish him. Sushchenya can only hope to prove his innocence.
Written by famous Belarusian Vasil Bykov, the international cinema project also involved MA.JA.DE Fiction (Germany), the Movie Company GP (Russia), Rija Films (Latvia), Lemming Film (the Netherlands), the television channel ZDF/ARTE (Germany), and the Eurimages Fund to Support European Cinema.
The film has already been awarded a prestigious FIPRESCI International Cinema Press Federation jury prize at the 65th International Film Festival in Cannes and was named ‘best film’ at the 14th International Film Festival in Trieste, as well as winning a Grand Prix at the 22nd Golden Vityaz International Slavic Cinema Forum, in Khabarovsk.
Two other films by Sergey Loznitsa — Happiness of Mine and A Letter — are being presented to American audiences, screened for one month: first in New York and then in other cities across the USA.
