Documentary film (34mag.net)
13 January 2021 | 34mag.net
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Since August 2020, more than 33,000 people have been detained in Belarus for political reasons; at least 7,000 of them are women.
The Sisters of Protest is a 34mag.net documentary film dedicated to girls and women who have been detained and arrested under Article 23.34. The first-person film tells how a prison cell changes a person and how long it takes to find a way out – even after being released.
Weeks and months have passed since the heroines were detained. But they still have bad dreams and are trying to comprehend this experience. Their story is not about prison life or “being beaten or not”. Their story is about what happens to a person when she is deprived of her freedom and when she tries to live through a time that stands still, sharing “anabiosis” with random people. And how these people become sisters at some point.
How do you feel when they take you by your hand and drag you to a prisoner transporter? How do you feel when you are treated like a criminal? How do you feel when you are assigned jail time, guided by the testimony of a witness whom you have never seen? How do you feel when you are locked up in a prison cell? How do you feel when you receive a letter from your mother or a stranger? How do you feel when it is unclear what they will do to you tomorrow? How do you feel when you do not see the sky for a long time, but if you do, it is in a square of ten-by-ten steps covered with bars? And how does it feel to become free again?
“The Sisters of Protest” is a series of monologues of people from different backgrounds, woven into the common experience of a Belarusian girl who is not ready to remain silent when she is deprived of her basic rights.
