Cast
in order of appearance
Anna Sirotina
Anna Sirotina studied acting with the great Russian theater director Pyotr Fomenko. She has chosen an eclectic creative life ever since, splitting her time between cinema (a dozen films), theater, and journalism. She first worked with Oksana Mysina at the School of Dramatic Art in Dmitry Krymov's production of Tararabumbia, and Christophe Feutrier's The Imaginary Operetta. She played the role of Novice in Mysina’s film, Insulted. Belarus(sia). She currently lives in Israel, where she shot her scenes for Voices of the New Belarus with Asher Davidson.
Konstantin Raikin
Konstantin Raikin is one of the most celebrated actors of his generation. Son of the famed comic actor Arkady Raikin, he took over his father’s popular Satirikon Theater in the late 1980s, turning it into one of Russia’s theatrical powerhouses. He debuted on stage at the Sovremennik Theater in 1971, and in cinema in 1972. Although his film credits number over 50 – including the hits One’s Own Amid Strangers, a Stranger Amid One’s Own (1974) and Truffaldino from Bergamo (1976) – his has been a life primarily dedicated to the theater. Moreover, he has excelled in every capacity he has taken on – actor, director, manager and teacher.
Maxim Spivak
Maxim Spivak studied acting at the Russian Academy of Theater Arts in Moscow and joined the company of the Contemporary Play School in Moscow in 2011, remaining there through 2015. He performed in Nikita Mikhalkov’s film Sunstroke in 2014. Spivak first worked with Oksana Mysina in the highly-charged political work I Wish to Speak, also in 2014. Voices of the New Belarus is his eighth film credit. After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Maxim returned to his native city of Odesa, Ukraine, where he works aiding people in need.
Vladimir Shcherban
Vladimir Shcherban was born in Donetsk in the Republic of Ukraine, Soviet Union. He studied at the Belorussian Academy of Arts, beginning his directing career in the city of Mogilyov. One year later he moved to Minsk, where he became one of the country’s top directors, usually staging the classics, at the legendary Yanka Kupala Theater. An interest in contemporary themes led him to becoming a founding member of the independent Belarus Free Theater in 2005, where he staged that venue’s inaugural production, Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis, followed by another 10 productions. He lost his position at the Yanka Kupala Theater and emigrated with other theater members to London in 2011. With Oliver Bennett he founded HUNCHtheatre in London in 2018.
Olga Karach
Olga Karach is a famed and popular Belarusian journalist, politician and human rights activist. Educated as a teacher of Belarusian and Russian language and literature, she taught in a Vitebsk elementary school for the first five years of her professioinal life. She received a Master’s degree in Public Politics at the European Humanitarian University in Vilnius, Lithuania, in 2012, after which she founded the newspapers Vitebsk Courier and Our House, both of which were routinely confiscated and destroyed by the Belarusian authorities. She was the Chair of the United Citizens Party from 2008 to 2012. She currently lives in Lithuania where she actively participates in Belarusian politics by way of her blogs, vlogs and leadership in the Our House international center of citizens’ initiatives.
Ilya Yashin
Ilya Yashin rose to prominence in Russian politics beginning in 2006 when he joined the Yabloko opposition party. He later participated in such parties as Solidarity, the Party For а Russia Without Corruption and Despotism, and PARNAS. He was a close friend and associate of Boris Nemtsov until the later’s assassination in 2015. Unlike many Russian politicians who attempt to change the status quo from the outside, Yashin made a concerted effort to create change from within when, in 2017, he ran for, and was elected to, a position on the Moscow Council of Deputies in the Krasnoselskaya region. His attention to detail and the everyday problems of Muscovites made him extremely popular with his electorate, but he was driven out of office in 2021. Ilya was arrested in Moscow in June 2022 for his outspoken opposition to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. As of Fall 2022, he was still being held in prison.
Alexei Nesterov
Alexei Nesterov debuted as an actor in 1984 in the Russian city of Orlov. Politically active in Moscow in the 1990s, he worked closely with the famed Russian dissident Valeria Novodvorskaya. From 1994 to 2007 he spent most of his time in Germany, where he staged numerous productions in various Berlin theaters. Returning to Moscow in 2007, he began a career in Russian films that now counts nearly 40 films. He performed the role of Corpse in Oksana Mysina’s film Insulted. Belarus(sia).
Zoya Svetova
Zoya Svetova is one of Russia’s most prominent journalists and human rights activists. She was a recipient of the Gerd Bucerius-Förderpreis Freie Presse Osteuropas in 2009. In her career she has written and/or worked for such outlets as Russian Thought (Paris), Radio France, Liberation (Paris), Novye Izvestia, Reporters Without Borders, The New Times and MBKh Media (founded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky). Her parents were intellectuals and dissidents, and her children are all activist journalists, including her son Tikhon Dzyadko, who is a key member of Dozhd (Rain) TV in Moscow. Zoya was a child actor, performing several lead roles at the Russian Youth Theater in Moscow when she was in school. Her part in Voices of the New Belarus marks her debut in film.
Darya Yurskaya
Darya Yurskaya graduated from the Moscow Art Theater School in 1994 and joined the Art Theater company that same year. She debuted in film as a young teenager in 1987 alongside her famed father Sergei Yursky who played the lead in This Fantastic World. Segment 13, a made-for-TV film. Since then she has accumulated 30 film credits. Yurskaya performs on stage in several productions at the Art Theater with her famed mother Natalya Tenyakova. She first worked with Oksana Mysina in a production of Nikolai Yevreinov’s The Main Thing at the Art Theater in the late 1990s.
Ilya Smirnov
Ilya Smirnov studied acting at the Shchepkin (Maly Theater) Institute in Moscow, debuting on stage in 2013 at Moscow’s Young Spectator Theater, where he has performed in numerous productions by famed directors Kama Ginkas and Henrietta Yanovskaya. He first worked with Oksana Mysina as a company member in Ginkas’s legendary production of K.I. from ‘Crime.’ Smirnov is the Art Director at POINT Space in Moscow. Following his screen debut in 2011, Voices of the New Belarus is his 15th film.
David Movsesyan
David Movsesyan is a budding musician and photographer who lives in Moscow. He has won numerous international competitions as a violinist. His performance in Voices of the New Belarus marks his acting debut.
Alexander Topuria
Alexander Topuria is a stage and film actor and highly successful screenwriter for television. At Moscow's Novy Theater in the 1990s he performed with Oksana Mysina in several productions staged by the classic theater director Boris Lvov-Anokhin. He performed Creon in Mysina's production of Viktor Korkiya's Ariston. Alexander has performed in over 20 films, including the role of Oldster in Mysina’s Insulted. Belarus(sia), and has recently performed starring roles in Moscow's famed Teatr.doc.
Yelena Koreneva
Yelena Koreneva is one of the most popular and accomplished actresses of her generation. She debuted in the cinema in 1970 in a film made by her father Alexei Korenev, and vaulted to stardom in Andrei Konchalovsky’s A Romance about Lovers (1974). Тhe list of directors for whom she has performed in both theater and film comprises a who’s who of the profession: Konchalovsky, Iosif Kheifets, Mark Zakharov, Alexander Mitta, Mikhail Kozakov, Rustam Khamdamov in cinema, and Anatoly Efros, Valery Fokin, and Andrii Zholdak in theater. She spent most of 1982 to 1993 in the United States. She has performed in approximately 100 films, made two shorts as a director and screenwriter, and is the author of three best-selling books.
Anatoly Bely
Anatoly Bely is one of the top actors of his generation. He was born in the Republic of Ukraine, USSR, and first studied at the Kuibyshev Aviation Institute. He graduated from the Shchepkin (Maly Theater) Institute in Moscow in 1995. He was a company member at the Stanislavsky Drama Theater from 1998 to 2003, when he joined the Moscow Art Theater where he has worked ever since. Bely’s film credits number over 150. He has performed in several of the most popular made-for-TV movies of the last decade. Anatoly first worked with Oksana Mysina in the theater production of Kitchen, a cult smash success in Moscow in 2000-01. Anatoly abruptly emigrated from Russia to Israel in August 2022 in protest of the Russian war in Ukraine.
Oleg Dulenin
Oleg Dulenin graduated from Urals State University and studied acting at the Yekaterinburg Theater Institute. He moved to Moscow in the mid-1990s, where he has performed frequently in theater, especially at the International Chekhov Laboratory, and in cinema, participating in 115 films. Oleg first crossed the path of Oksana Mysina in the mid-1990s when he worked as an assistant to director Boris Lvov-Anokhin at the Novy Theater where Oksana performed numerous roles.
Ivan Volkov
Ivan Volkov studied at the Glinka Choral Academy in St. Petersburg, then studied at the Variety Theater Institute before graduating from the Russian Academy of Theater Arts in Moscow in 1997. He spent the first four years of his acting career with Slava Polunin’s Snowshow, before spending five years at the Sovremennik Theater (2001-2006). With Nikolai Roshchin he was a founding member of Moscow’s A.R.T.O Theater. In 2020 he followed Roshchin to the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. Volkov, whose parents are the famed Nikolai Volkov and Olga Volkova, writes music for film and theater. He has performed in 40 films. In protest against the Russian war in Ukraine, Ivan emigrated to Georgia with several of his St. Petersburg colleagues.
