Crystal Swan

Minsk, 1996. Five years after the Soviet collapse, the country is in neither the old order nor a new one. Velya loves house music and wants to move to Chicago and DJ. On her visa paperwork she invents her employer's phone number. The consulate will call to verify it, and the number belongs to a real house, a family out in the provinces. Velya has to go there and wait by that phone. Darya Zhuk's first film looks at the American dream from outside, at a sardonic but affectionate distance. What Velya wants to escape is not an abstract evil, only an order that never makes room for her. The palette carries that tension: bright, almost forced clothing against grey concrete. It premiered at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival and became Belarus's submission to the 91st Academy Awards, the country's first entry in that category in twenty-two years. Who it's for: Viewers who like post-1990s Eastern European cinema and portraits of young women who do not fit. Who it's not for: The lead is deliberately unlikeable and the plot is built on waiting. The ending is harsh if you want a clean resolution.