De Balie Kijkt: Mud

It’s one of the biggest questions since Putin’s aggressive, full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Why are Russians not protesting massively against the war in Ukraine and Putin’s regime? Taking the documentary Mud as a starting point, experts discuss how to understand the position of Russian citizens. In the film they seem apathetic, is that what living under an authoritarian regime does to you? What are we looking at when we speak of collective responsibility? How does civic participation work in authoritarian regimes?

How IDFA described Mud

To the aural accompaniment of sloshing mud and gurgling water, Russians soak themselves in the curative mud baths of a historic spa. It is October 2022, and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine has been underway for seven months. This place, however, seems completely unaffected. Before visitors can enjoy the benefits of being packed in mud, they must deal with a complex jumble of prohibitions, stamps, voucher systems, and other bureaucratic hoops and hurdles.

Mud is a black-and-white dreamscape without any interviews or commentary. Harsh reality makes its presence felt only occasionally via short news clips on a smartphone, a TV news broadcast quickly zapped away to a game show with Soviet songs, and soldiers silently taking mud baths. This microcosm of a health spa becomes an allegory of contemporary Russia, with mud rituals and curative baths assuaging potential social unrest, and ultra-detailed surveillance silencing any possibly rebellious citizens.

Ilya Povolotsky is an award-winning filmmaker from Russia. His unsentimental mediative cinema is praised for its visual style and delicate attention to remote corners of the decaying empire. With films presented at festivals like Cannes, San Sebastián, IDFA – Povolotsky continues his artistic practice in radically independent format, outside of subsidy systems. The most recent MUD, produced together with Nikolay Zheludovich, an acclaimed DOP from Belarus – has become one of the first cinematic testimonies from inside Russia, after the the start of full-scale war with Ukraine.

Speakers

Victoria ChernukhaCreative Producer Mud

Marlies GlasiusProfessor International Relations (UvA), Author Authoritarian Practices in a Global Age

Belarusian dissident

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