Film maker Jury Chascavacki lives and works in Belarus, but his films are rarely seen there. In 1995, he compared Belarus's authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko to Tartuffe, the hypocritical and manipulative title character of Moliere's 1664 comedy.
"They needed a couple of weeks to find out who Tartuffe was," he said. But once the government figured out it wasn't a flattering comparison, Chascavacki went on Lukashenko's unwritten cultural blacklist. Now his work is seen primarily on European television.
"Ordinary President" was made in 1996, two years after Lukashenko was elected president. It traces his political rise to power, from a minor position as a collective farm manager, to an anti-corruption crusader, and finally, to the presidency. In the years since "Ordinary President" was made, most of Chascavacki's dark fears about Lukashenko's real intentions have come true. In a series of referendums, and power grabs, Lukashenko has established dictatorial power. He prevented the rise of an independent press, kept his country isolated from the market reforms and western leanings of neighboring post-Soviet countries, and shut down the small civil society movement that sought to reform the country's political culture after decades of Soviet rule.
"Through ten years of artistic work, I have been saying that Belarus can't be seen as a minor problem," said Chascavacki. "The situation in Belarus is a sign of the future in Russia."
In an excerpt from Chascavacki's film, "Ordinary President," the film maker follows Lukashenko on a visit to the site of a former Nazi death camp in Poland and makes another damning comparison of the Belarussian leader.
