Andrey Kudinenko

Andrey Kudinenko was born in 1971 in Brest, the city on the Polish border of then Soviet Belarus. He got his degree as a film director at the Belarusian State Academy of Arts at a master class of Victor Turov, the prominent Soviet film director. Fortunately for A. Kudinenko, the Soviet regime has collapsed before he graduated and the young filmmaker got a freedom to speak with his open heart and mind. But not for a long. Andrey Kudinenko is not a typical director for the Belarusian cinema school. One of his most sensational, the "Occupation. Mysteries" film, has been denied by the former communist Belarusian authorities. The distribution certificate has been revoked in his home country, meaning the movie was banned, while outside Belarus it was traveling the world and gathering numerous awards. Occupation. Mysteries provides an independent interpretation of the II WW events, which didn't relay with the official post-communist views. The movie told that everyone - a partisan, a police officer, a solder from the occupation army, everyone wants just to survive. Due to the ban and lack of opportunity to work, Kudinenko had to leave the country. He moved to Moscow and St.-Petersburg (Russia), where he directed an award winning feature and works as a director on several TV series productions. Later the ban has been eliminated giving the filmmaker an opportunity to come back and to create in his homeland. Kudinenko's adaptation of the classic French novel by Prosper Mérimée "Lokis" has been released at that time under the title of "Masakra". The film was considered by critics to be shocking. The slow and mystique legends, the basics of the Masakra movie - the film about the people's revolution in Belarus in 19th century, - seemed to be a pure and correct reflection of the moods of Belarussian people. The movie gained a huge audience's recognition and popularity. Andrey Kudinenko soon became a creative hero of Belarus, especially among the young intellectual beau-monde of the country. Eventually, he became a creator, curator and a heart of a long-term innovative multimedia project Chronotop, which brings together young filmmakers of the country, making their diverse shorts, both scripted and unscripted, reflecting Belarusian reality. The project has been featured on festivals in the country and outside. Andrey Kudinenko is proud to be on close terms with Emir Kusturica, openly admits he is not admiring Tarkovsky's films, preferring Hitchcock. Kudinenko is provocative but sincere, he says what he thinks, both in life and in his films.