First Human Rights Defense TV Series About Police Filmed In Belarus

The purpose of the film is to bring the topic of human rights to a wider range of people.

Human rights in Belarus are still a hot issue. Public organizations Legal Initiative and Dzeya decided to apply a creative approach this problem and filmed an entire series in the genre of tragicomedy - “Stepanych”. The creators told Radio Svaboda about the project.

Why filmed?

Member of the board of the Legal Initiative Siarhei Ustsinau, who played the leading role of Major Stepanych, says that the main goal of the authors was to cover human rights violations by the law-enforcement officials in the post-Soviet countries.

“We have had this idea for a very long time. It would be easy to film a “talking head”, which would broadcast about human rights violations. But this will not work. That is why we chose the format of a TV series,” says Siarhei Ustsinau.

The creative team wrote the script for about 5 months, it was corrected more than once during the shooting. Total creation of the film took 8 months.

Is the show about Belarus?

Not really. The action in 10 episodes takes place in the fictional city of Komsk in the Komi Republic. They decided to put it like this, because human rights do not have borders and are common to all countries. Torture, rejection of statements about a crime are unconditional violations of human rights. The creators tried to avoid associations with a certain post-Soviet country. But they admit that it wasn’t a complete success.

Who filmed?

The whole team that worked on the project consisted of 24 people.

“We did not have a budget, and therefore we were limited in the choice of actors, but tried to approach with a certain professionalism. Some of the actors have already starred before, for someone “Stepanych” was the first such experience. Since we had no money for fees, I myself was forced to star in the title role,” says Siarhei Ustsinau.

Among recognizable persons is the former investigator of the prosecutor's office of the Frunzensky district of Minsk, better known as a human rights activist, Aleh Vouchak, who has already managed to star in more than one film on criminal themes.

Among such debutants is Yulia Shvabovich, the performer of the main female role. The girl finishes her studies at the Belarusian State University with a degree in International Law. Yulia is interested in human rights and collaborates with the Legal Initiative. Basically, the girl helps to write complaints, most often on the refusal of legal assistance and torture.

There were no auditions in the classical form - it was only necessary to send a few videos to the director, and he arranged everything.

“In fact, there was an interesting situation: I am not an actress and had never dealt with anything like that before. But it turned out that I was the first person who secured the place in the shooting team in the series. At that time, they planned some other actor even for the leading part, and other roles were only discussed,” says Yulia.

Her character Zoya Nikitsina is a former student. She was able to get into the police and had not yet had time to get acquainted with the peculiarities of the work. This is a very naive girl who believes in law, justice and wants to help everyone.

“But over time, she assimilates and turns into a monster herself,” says Yulia.

Despite Yulia’s inexperience, the shootings came easy for her - the director's advice helped. On average, they took from 5 to 10 doubles.

The hardest part was the scene of torture.

It was necessary to “torture” a person who is significantly taller than me, and he also has some kind of physical training. It looked ridiculous! But in the end it turned out better than I expected,” says the amateur actress.

“We respect honest policemen”

According to the creators, the series has already interested the KGB employees. Representatives of this office came to one of the candidates for directors and asked about the script, saying that it compromised the representatives of the special services. Siarhei Ustsinau does not agree with such an opinion.

“We respect honest law-enforcement officers who really protect the order and catch the criminals. But if this work turns into political persecution of activists or when police break the law, this is a violation of human rights. And it’s about such policemen that our series was filmed. ”

The creators consider the success indicator to be not the number of views and likes, but the number of people who will start to defend human rights after watching the series.

“We want our project to become popular. Our goal is to bring the topic of human rights to a wider range of people. Using examples from TV shows, we show how certain actions of characters violate human rights. At the end of each episode there is a description of violations referring to international human rights standards. ”

All 10 episodes of “Stepanych” will appear on the YouTube channel of the Legal Initiative on June 1, immediately after the presentation. Also, the series can be viewed in the social networks.

“We are ready for criticism. This was our first such experience and, as they say, only those who do nothing make no mistakes. Later, we plan to make a full-length version and send it to the film festival.”

The presentation of the “Stepanych” TV series will be held on May 31 in the Imaguru space.