Under The Grey Sky

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That was the only film I watched during this year’s Chicago European Film Festival (this year hosted by Poland). The film director, Mara Tamkovich, was in the audience and held a Q&A session after the screening. She is brilliant, and the movie is brilliant, and I almost cried almost all the time while I watched it.

From the Siskel Center website:

In Mara Tamkovich’s eerily timely feature debut, journalist Lena is arrested for livestreaming the suppression of a protest against the 2020 Belarusian election, thrusting her husband Ilya into an untenable situation. With the grim possibility that Lena will spend years behind bars, Ilya must consider the sacrifices he may be forced to make to support her. Inspired by the true story of Katsyaryna Andreeva and Igor Ilyash, UNDER THE GREY SKY is a haunting portrait of political repression in the digital age which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, and won the Best Debut Director prize at the 2024 Polish Film Festival. 

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Published by Hettie D.

My name is Henrietta (Hettie) Dombrovskaya. I was born in Saint-Petersburg, Russian (actually, back then – Leningrad, USSR) in 1963, and immigrated to the United States in 1996. I love Saint Petersburg, the city I was born and raised in, and I think it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. Similarly (but differently) I love Chicago, and can’t imagine myself moving somewhere else in the observable future. I have three children, Igor, Vlad and Anna, all adults living on their own, and one (so far) granddaughter Nadia. I also believe that my children are the best thing that happened in my life. As for my professional life, I am working in the field of Information Technologies. When I was twenty, I’ve declared that the databases are the coolest thing invented and that I want to do them for the rest of my life. Thirty plus years later, I still believe it’s true, and still, believe that the databases are the best. These two statements together imply that I think a person can have it all, and indeed, I think so! Keep reading my journals to find out how I did it.

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