Filmstill from the Belarusian film "Crystal Swan" (original title: Khrustal, Хрусталь) with Alina Nasibullina as Velya
© Daria Zhuk - provided by Loco Films
Movie poster of the Belarusian film "Crystal Swan" (original title: Khrustal, Хрусталь) by Daria Zhuk, 2018.
© Daria Zhuk - provided by Loco Films
Two women stand at a bus stop with colorful walls as the sun gently shines on them.
Film poster of "Crystal Swan" featuring a stylized portrait of a young woman in vibrant colors.
image 1:
Filmstill from the Belarusian film "Crystal Swan" (original title: Khrustal, Хрусталь) with Alina Nasibullina as Velya
© Daria Zhuk - provided by Loco Films
image 2:
Movie poster of the Belarusian film "Crystal Swan" (original title: Khrustal, Хрусталь) by Daria Zhuk, 2018.
© Daria Zhuk - provided by Loco Films
Past events
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The film Crystal Swan tells the story of the Belarusian transition period in the 1990s. The young lawyer Evelina dreams of leaving her home country Belarus to make a career as a DJ in Chicago. But a mistake happens when issuing her American visa, prompting her to take a risky step.

Released in 2018, Belarusian director Darya Zhuk’s film tells the story of a young woman’s search for self-esteem and belonging in the post-Soviet era.

The screening will be followed by a short keynote speech and an audience discussion on Belarusian and German experiences of political change and their memories.
Moderated by Andrei Zavadski (TU Dortmund University) and Nora Korte (“Transition Dialogue” Network).

The event is part of the discussion series “Transition Talks” by “Transition Dialogue” and the research project “Reconstituting Publics through Remembering Transitions: Enabling a Critical Engagement with the 1980-90s on a Local and Transnational Level.” It is dedicated to the dialogical remembering of the transition period of the 1980s and 1990s in several European countries, including Poland and Germany. A public workshop on the topic will take place on 6 May 2023.

With the support of the Federal Agency for Civic Education.

 

Nora Korte is part of the “Transition Dialogue” project team. From 2015 to 2017 she headed the German-Russian Forum’s office at the Embassy of Germany in Moscow. Earlier she had taught political science and media studies at the Moscow Institute of International Relations and managed the “German Studies Russia” program for Freie Universität Berlin. She is a co-author of the publication Challenges of Transition in Eastern Europe: Lessons for Civic Education.

Dr. Andrei Zavadski is a researcher at intersections of museum studies, public history, media studies, and museum studies. After completing his doctorate at Freie Universität Berlin, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH) at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and as a fellow at the Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam (ZZF). He is currently a research associate at the Institute for Art and Material Culture at TU Dortmund University. He has published in Europe-Asia Studies, Problems of Post-Communism, Media, Culture & Society, and Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie, among others.

Trailer
Filmstill from the Belarusian film "Crystal Swan" (original title: Khrustal, Хрусталь) with Alina Nasibullina as Velya
© Daria Zhuk – provided by Loco Films

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