Island Belarus

Belarusian President Lukashenko is overseeing a military procession in Minsk's impressive Victory Square. It is a precisely choreographed spectacle in authentic Soviet style. Suddenly, the scene shifts to the countryside where a grubby, elderly man is chopping down a tree. The old man lives in a deserted village, its houses on the verge of collapse." Director Victor Asliuk's contrast of Belarus's rural and urban life is both touching and full of atmosphere. He examines the tangible differences between the young in the city and the elderly in the village and between modernity and tradition, interspersing modern images with archive material depicting the countryside as it used to be.