top of page

Oksana Mysina

Oksana Mysina

Director

​

Oksana Mysina is a filmmaker based on the island of Crete in Greece. In tandem with her husband John Freedman she is a co-founder of the independent and experimental Free Flight Films studio.
Mysina's most recent film is the film short Cherry Orchard. War. A Poetic Parable, based on snippets of plays by Anton Chekhov (primarily The Cherry Orchard), and documentary interviews with film and theater artists displaced by revolution in Belarus, and Russia's war against Ukraine. The Cherry Orchard. War project is a big one that will take on various lives in the future, including more shorts, and a full-length feature film. Mysina's previous film was the real-life anti-war short, Escape, which tells the story of a refugee family escaping to Europe at the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Winner of 14 awards in its first year of life, Escape was named Grand Prix winner at the Atlantis International Internet Short Film Festival (New York); Best Emotional Film at the Goldspire International Film Festival (Paris); Most Impactful Film, and Best International Film over 15 Minutes at NewsFest in Santa Monica, CA, and was awarded the top Red Cross award at the Flowers Against Bullets festival (Vienna).
Mysina debuted as a film director in 2020 with the full-length political film Insulted Belarus. Based on a screenplay by famed Belarusian activist and writer/producer Andrei Kureichik, it premiered on the TV Rain channel. Insulted was named Best Experimental Film at the Art Film Awards (Skopje). Mysina followed in 2021 with two film shorts, Ivan Petrovich (at the Goldspire International Film Festival, Paris), and Red, Blue, and Asya, both of which have enjoyed active lives on the festival circuit. Red, Blue, and Asya has garnered some 20 awards at various international festivals, including an Award of Recognition at the Best Shorts Competition in San Diego; Best Female Director and Zero Budget Film at the Iconic Images Film Festival (Vilnius); and Best Director at the Silver Mask Live Festival (Los Angeles). Also in 2021 she created her second full-length political film, Voices of the New Belarus, based on another Andrei Kureichik screenplay. In 2022 she created a short version of Voices under the title of Love is Stronger than Fear. Mysina is currently working on an international film, A Woman and her Angel, a feature film predominantly with Greek actors. She edits her own films, and is her own post-production team.
In her award-winning film acting career, Oksana's work has been seen at festivals and in cinemas throughout the world. Her work in theater has toured to over 20 countries on four continents.

Oksana Mysina on her film, Voices of the New Belarus, for the Analogio International Festival, Athens, Greece, September 2022.


Voices of the New Belarus is a film about torture and murder in the prisons of Belarus.
The 2020 revolution in Minsk and other cities bogged down in blood and violence unleashed by President Alyaksandr Lukashenka on his own people. It was a true war, and in a very short time, barely more than a year, it was revealed to be a precursor or enabler of Vladimir Putin's 2022 war against Ukraine, which, in itself, was an attack on the security of Europe and the entire world. The film's documentary footage reveals the true picture of what happens behind the scenes in a country lead by a bloody dictator.
The texts spoken in the film are drawn verbatim from real documents recording actual words spoken by the 14 characters. These are either imprisoned leaders of the Belarus opposition, or passersby who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. All of them ended up in the infamous Akrestsina prison, which can be compared in ways to Hitler's prison camps. One character, a leader of the protest movement, was murdered during his incarceration.

The screenplay was written by Andrei Kureichik, one of the most prominent writers in Belarus, who presently is in forced exile due to legal threats against him originating in both Belarus and Russia. The film was directed by Oksana Mysina, a Russian actor and director now residing in Greece. The performers include prominent Russian and Belarusian actors and political activists, including Ilya Yashin, a colleague of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Since filming his role, Yashin was arrested and sent to prison for his opposition to Putin's invasion of Ukraine. The film's music was composed by Sergei Kuchmenko.
The violent repressions that we now witness in Lukashenka's Belarus and Putin's Russia are a sign of the fascism that can hide behind polished facades.
The entire film crew thanks the Analogio Festival in Athens for inviting us to participate. We insist on telling the truth. We say no to war.

bottom of page