Not Made For Politics

Since she left Belarus in 2018, the young filmmaker Volia has lived in Estonia. From there, she follows events in her home country, where dictator Alexander Lukashenko has been in power for over 30 years. When mass protests broke out in Belarus for the first time in 2020, Volia became painfully aware of her exile status and powerlessness. She contacted three women whose husbands are political prisoners. One of the women is Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who, after her husband was arrested, ran for president in his place. Political analysts predicted that she would win the election. Lukaschenko, however, announced himself as the victor, and she went into exile in Lithuania. There, she is now trying to grow into the role of politician that has fallen into her lap. Volia's camera shows Tsikhanouskaya's battle to make her initially often shaky voice become louder so that she can publicly fight for the interests of her people. Interests that are increasingly threatened with becoming a side note since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.