Ulysses

Nikita Lavretski / Belarus / 2024 / World Premiere / 586 min.

synopsis

James Joyce created his monumental work on the basis of Homer's epic. The Belarusian director decided to “scrape” words from the writer's text and “write” his own modern odyssey through it. In his film-palimpsest, he not only refers to the famous modernist novel by the Irish writer, but uses the opening scene to bring into play the no-less-famous attempt at a film adaptation from 1967. Only Dublin was replaced by Minsk, and instead of a Jewish busybody, Ruslyk, the personal director of President Lukashenko wanders the labyrinth of the city all day long. On his convoluted postmodern pilgrimage, he meets doctors, politicians, propagandists, artists, drunkards and outcasts. He conducts blasphemous dialogues with them about the rotten nature of the ruling regime, vents creative and personal frustrations, or just tries to borrow a cell phone to call home to his wife. The cinematic colossus that unfolds over nine hours fascinates with the omnipresence of intense moments, ordered one after the other with a wild rhythmic cadence.

“I thought it would be nice to show the real Minsk. That’s the diss track aspect of it.”

Quote source: Mubi

biography

Nikita Lavretski (1994) is a Belarusian filmmaker who was described by the prestigious French magazine Cahiers du cinéma as “the most interesting gagman of the invisible Belarusian scene”. His films, in which he breaks the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction, have been screened at festivals in Moscow, Madrid or Lisbon.