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Darya Zhuk's Crystal Swan is receiving its exclusive digital premiere on Mubi, and is showing May 23 - June 22, 2020 in most countries.Crystal Swan is a love letter to friends I grew up with. During my coming of age in Belarus in the 90s, I felt that all my friends around me had been dreaming of coming to the West. This yearning to explore the West permeated my youth.I first conceived of a film about the American Dream standing in a long line to the U.S. embassy in Minsk, much like the second scene of Crystal Swan. I was getting my student visa to go study in the U.S. The air was full of suspense and high stakes innate to good drama that I imagined this one queue of people waiting for their dreams to come true could itself be a great documentary. But it was prohibited to film at the embassy,...

A version of this story on “Crystal Swan” first appeared in the Foreign Language Issue of TheWrap’s Oscar magazine.

First-time director Darya Zhuk’s drama “Crystal Swan,” one of the sleepers in this year’s Oscar foreign-language race, is set in the early 1990s and stars Alina Nasibullina as a young DJ desperate to get a visa and head to the United States. While it is not autobiographical, Zhuk did find herself waiting in many long lines when she secured student visas to study in the U.S.

The film is only the third Oscar submission ever from Belarus, and the first in 22 years. This interview is one in a series of conversations with directors of this year’s foreign Oscar contenders.

Also Read: Belarus to Enter Oscar Race After 22 Years With Indie Gem 'Crystal Swan'

The lead character in this film is a combination of your experiences and…...

Among the 87 entries this year, down five from 2017’s whopping 92, there are more documentaries than ever, plus two African countries submitting for the first time: Malawi and Niger. Here’s a guide to the films, including logline, sales, and production contact.

Afghanistan

“Rona, Azim’s Mother”

Director: Jamshid Mahmoudi

Logline: A touching drama set in the milieu of Afghan immigrants in Iran who lack full citizens’ rights, with laborer Azim struggling to care for his mother.

Key Cast: Mohsen Tanabandeh, Fatemeh Hosseini

Intl. Sales: Noori Pictures

Algeria

“Until the End of Time”

Director: Yasmine Chouikh

Logline: An elderly grave digger and a 60-something widow meet in the cemetery of Sidi Boulekbour and develop feelings for one another.

Key Cast: Djillali Boudjemaa, Djamila Arres

Intl. Sales: MakingOf Film

Argentina

“El Ángel”

Director: Luis Ortega

Logline: A portrait of the infamous teenage serial killer “The Angel of Death,” who took Argentina by...

The Oscars race for Best Foreign Language Film has kicked off with one past winner, another past nominee, a couple of esteemed international auteurs, a Palme d’Or winner and movies about drug runners, a transgender teen and, um, hot and sweaty troll sex.

Those are all in the first dozen-plus films submitted to the Academy by international film boards that have qualified to enter movies in the Oscars race. The first batch of submitted films range from this year’s Palme d’Or winner, Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s “Shoplifters,” to Lukas Dhont’s understated transgender character study “Girl” to Ali Abbasi’s “Border,” which energized Cannes audiences with its twisted tale of a woman who realizes she’s actually a troll.

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, the director of the German entry, “Never Look Away,” directed the Oscar-winning “The Lives of Others” more than a decade ago, while Colombian...

Personal and national identity reverberate through “Crystal Swan,” a tough but irresistible debut from Belarusian director Darya Zhuk.

Set in the director’s native Eastern European nation in the mid-1990s, Zhuk co-wrote the story of an aspiring DJ hustling big time to flee her country for a life spinning house music in Chicago. Co-produced by Vice Films, “Swan” premiered at the Czech Republic’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival on Saturday.

Featuring a breakout performance from star Alina Nasibullina and boasting a rare female cinematographer in Carolina Costa, the drama marks a progressive re-entry into the awards race for Belarus, as the country will submit “Swan” for the Best Foreign Language Oscar after a 22-year dry spell.

Also Read: Karlovy Vary Film Festival to Honor Tim Robbins

Nasibullina plays Velya, a club kid and serious DJ desperate to escape the squalor of her “liberated” homeland — which won its independence...

At a time when the U.S. borders are being made as hostile as possible to migrants, stories of hopeful outsiders betting the farm on the American Dream hit hard and true in the heart — even one as outwardly oddball as “Crystal Swan,” freshman helmer Darya Zhuk’s spirited, bittersweet comedy about a restless Belarusian DJ stuck farcically at the visa application stage. Zhuk’s film may be set in 1996, but the tension it outlines between young Eastern Europeans yearning for a new life and an older, more staid generation bewildered by the youth exodus still feels thoroughly of the moment. That topicality, bolstered by the Vice Films production imprint, should further carry this winningly small, scrappy debut — Belarus’s first Oscar submission in 22 years — across the festival circuit following its Karlovy Vary premiere. For Zhuk, writer Helga Landauer and ball-of-fire lead Alina Nasibullina, meanwhile, it’s an auspicious arrival.

East European nation Belarus has selected Darya Zhuk’s debut feature “Crystal Swan” as its submission for the Oscars’ foreign-language film category, the first country to do so for the 91st Academy Awards race. It is the first time Belarus has entered a film in the Oscars contest for 22 years. The film, about a young female DJ, has its world premiere at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival Saturday.

Set in 1996, the movie centers on Velya, a young woman living in Minsk, who loves House Music and dreams of moving to Chicago to work as a professional DJ. Getting a visa proves tough though, and her quest to provide a phoney verification for the faked documents she needs for the visa application leads to a trip to a grim back-water town, where the locals are hostile toward this non-conformist free-spirit.

“I wanted to make something about my generation of Belarusians,” Zhuk told Variety.

Exclusive: Loco Films has picked up international sales rights to Crystal Swan, the debut feature from Belarusian director Darya Zhuk, which has been produced in association with Vice Films.

This comes ahead of its debut at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic this weekend. The film tells the story of an aspiring DJ in pursuit of her own American dream.

It is the latest international pick up for Laurent Daniélou’s Loco Films, which recently acquired the rights to Germinal Roaux’s refugee drama Fortuna and Lungin’s big-budget Russian war movie Leaving Afghanistan. Loco will handle sales in all territories outside of Belorussia.

Crystal Swan follows Velya, who dreams of moving to Chicago to pursue her passion for house music. However, obtaining a Us visa proves a difficult endeavor and, determined to flee the country, the young woman takes the risk of buying a letter...

Darya Zhuk talks about her film ’Crystal Swan’ which opens the East of the West competition on Saturday (June 30).

Director Darya Zhuk reveals why she wanted to return to the hopeful, optimistic time of 1990s Belarus for her debut film Crystal Swan which opens Karlovy Vary’s East of the West competition on Saturday (June 30).

Crystal Swan is about a young woman growing up in post-Soviet Belarus in the 1990s. Alina Nasibullina plays a wannabe DJ who dreams of moving to the Us but makes a tiny error on her visa application throwing her plans into disarray. It is the...

"I want to see the birthplace of house music." This looks fantastic! Watch the first trailer for a film titled Crystal Swan from Belarus, the feature directorial debut of filmmaker Darya Zhuk. This is premiering at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival starting at the end of this week - I'll be there, and this is one of my highlights. Set in 1996, Crystal Swan is about a young Belarusian woman named Evelina who is trying desperately to get a visa to the USA so she can pursue her dreams of becoming a DJ. However, a typo in her application forces her to figure things out and possibly cause everything to fall apart. Alina Nasibullina stars, and the cast includes Ivan Mulin, Yury Borisov, Svetlana Anikey, & Ilya Kapanets. This reminds me of Mia Hansen-Løve's excellent film about a young DJ called Eden, but there is a bit more dry humor in this one.