Films by Pavel Mozhar

2026, 14 min
by Pavel Mozhar, Pavel Mozhar

An abandoned GDR factory. More than 400 dusty job application letters from the years 2004 to 2008 lie scattered in the cellar of the administrative building. Alongside the traditional phrases of a covering letter, the documents contain descriptions of personal circumstances and memories. The wishes of the applicants, as well as their fears and pain, are laid bare in their effort to find a place in the free market economy. A documentary contemplation of the individual behind the workforce. Source of Synopsis

Germany 2024, 29 min
by Pavel Mozhar

Using the streets of his Berlin neighbourhood as a backdrop, a filmmaker from Belarus investigates the systematic nature of Russian and Belarusian war crimes in Ukraine and explores his own responsibility for this war.Six months after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian army withdraws from some occupied regions and settlements, leaving a trail of shockingly similar traces of war crimes. In the reports from several human rights organisations and independent groups of journalists, there is increasing evidence that Russian and Belarusian troops in the occupied territories have also been pursuing the systematic destruction of the civilian population’s national identity. Based on accounts from civilian victims, the filmmaker addresses this system of oppression. The individual statements are voiced by two Ukrainian actors, while the streets of his Berlin neighbourhood serve as the film’s backdrop. To determine the responsibility he himself might bear for this war, the filmmaker reflects on his childhood and school education in post-Soviet Belarus. [74 BERLINALE]

Germany 2021, 29 min
by Pavel Mozhar

How do you go about crushing a protest? Handbook provides a comprehensive answer to this question. It includes almost everything, except no actual beatings take place in this instruction video.It’s August 2020. While in Minsk protests are mounting against Lukashenko’s re-election, Pavel Mozhar follows the developments in his homeland from his room in Berlin. Over these few days, around 7,000 protesters were arrested by the notorious OMON riot police.Mozhar studied hundreds of witness statements on the internet and discovered there was a systemic approach to the oppression. He transforms his room into a studio where he stages re-enactments of witness testimonies by a “police officer” wearing black clothes and a balaclava, and four “detainees” dressed identically in shirts and jeans. The result is distressingly instructive. [IDFA 2021]

Germany 2019, 25 min
by Hannes Schilling

50km east of Berlin was once a secret labor camp of the Nazis, of which there are no traces left today. A witness of the time, three ground and monument conservators and two war graves are asked to search for traces on the site. The confrontation with diary entries of former prisoners asks about the consequences of a fading culture of remembrance."A forest in Brandenburg. Digging for traces of history. Preservationists secure the foundation walls of a camp where Jewish prisoners from Theresienstadt were forced to build a branch office of the Berlin Reich Main Security Office under miserable conditions. Other men are searching for Nazi memorabilia with a metal detector. And then there is Mrs. Werner, Christa Werner, who has been living here for so long that she remembers the 'Judenloch (Judhole)' from the past.(DOK Leipzig, Silvia Hallensleben)