Film “Belarusian Scrambled Eggs” Banned From Festival Bulbamovie

The Ministry of Culture believes that the film “suggests the one-dimensional anti-human life position”

24 feature films, documentaries and animated films are included in the program of the VI Belarusian Film Festival Bulbamovie which will take place in the Minsk art cinema “Titan” on October 21-22. The program director of the festival and a cultural critic Maksim Zhbankou announced that at a press conference in Minsk on October 13, BelaPAN informs.

The Republican expert commission on prevention of pornography, violence and cruelty has forbidden the organizers of the VI Belarusian Film Festival Bulbamovie to show a short film “Belarusian scrambled eggs” by Valeriya Tseliasheuskaya at the festival, BelaPAN informs.

According to Maksim Zhbankou, this movie by Tseliasheuskaya was among the 24 films, which the organizers have decided to include in the program of this film festival. The film should have participated in the competition of feature films.

“This film, like all the others, was sent to the Ministry of Culture to obtain a permission for movie rental, this was our choice, – Zhbankou said. – But the Ministry of Culture has disagreed and thus this ban appeared. In this case we, from one hand, depend on the decision of the authorities, but from the other hand, some questions arise.”

The commission’s expert opinion of 6 October, which the festival organizers showed to reporters, said that the film “contains numerous scenes of violence” and that “the relationships between the people in the film suggest a unidimensional anti-human view of life.” “The demonstration of this film is prohibited in Belarus,” – the document says.

“This decision doesn’t allow to demonstrate the film in the cinemas of Belarus, – Zhbankou noted. – But the document gives free rein to other options of getting this video information. We believe that the viewer has the right to decide what and why to watch, and the arguments of the expert commission look, to put it mildly, weird.

“As a matter of course, the viewer will not see this tape on-screen during the festival. But this does not mean that we won’t find some opportunity to convey to the viewer, that it is possible to get acquainted with this film in another way. Thus, without violating state laws, we do protect the rights of our viewers and authors,” – the culture expert added.

Tseliasheuskaya’s short film “Belarusian Scrambled Eggs” is one of the five episodes of the “Thanatos and Eros” film project, created by the “Chronotope” team under the direction of Andrei Kudzinenka.

This project was a continuation of the film project “Chronotope,” dedicated to the modern Belarusian mythology. The new episodes touch upon the themes of death and love. The plot of “Belarusian Scrambled Eggs” is not yet known, since the premiere of the whole cycle has been scheduled as part of Bulbamovie on October 22. Judging by the short film’s teasers, it contains sex scenes and a murder scene, which might have caused the ban on his demonstration.

The festival organizers do not yet know whether this film will remain in Bulbamovie’s competitive program.

A feature of this year's festival is that there will be only one winner in each category, not three as it used to be. Well-known Belarusian artist Ruslan Vashkevich has made the prize statuettes especially for the sixth Bulbamovie festival, which represent kitchen graters, crowned with a hand in a “victory” gesture.

In addition, one of the films will pick up the Audience Choice Award. The reward for the winner of this award will be the money that the organizers are to collect on one of the Belarusian crowdfunding platforms within about a week.