The Swan Song of Fedor Ozerov

Amidst rumours of a possible Third World War, 25-year-old musician Fedor Ozerov can only think of one thing: finding his magical jumper. Fedor firmly believes that his knitted jumper with daisies brings him luck and inspires him to write brilliant songs. 

What follows in this witty low-budget film is a search through the underground scene of Minsk, full of eccentric characters – a comical quest, in the spirit of Orpheus and Eurydice. Director Yuri Semashko, himself a Belarusian expat, combines humour, animation and poetry in this delightful portrait of a creative generation desperately searching for meaning and intimacy, while the political reality of a repressive system constantly lurks beneath the surface.

The Swan Song of Fedor Ozerov marks director Yuri Semashko's feature film debut and premiered earlier this year in the Forum section of the 75th Berlinale, where it won the Tagesspiegel Readers' Jury Award. The film was subsequently screened at the New Horizons International Film Festival in Wrocław and was nominated for the Grand Prize at the Jeonju International Film Festival in South Korea.

The Swan Song of Fedor Ozerov is part of the “Filmmakers at Risk” selection at the Northern Film Festival, along with five other films from different programme lines and the panel on Friday afternoon: Filmmaking at Risk: The World is Watching.