The European & Russian Studies Speaker Seminar on “Belarusian Culture from 1990 to 2010: Resistive Self-Expression Experiment” by Daria Zhuk (Columbia University) and Tatsiana Zamirovskaya, a Belarusian writer
Bio: Darya Zhuk was born in Minsk, Belarus. She discovered filmmaking while studying Economics at Harvard University and later earned an MFA degree with honors from Columbia University in 2014. Most recently she wrote & directed an original episode of Little America for Apple TV+ based on her own immigration experience to the United States. She directed and EP’d the first four episodes (including the pilot) of an original series for Netflix Russia called Zato, as well as an episode of The Premise for FX—an anthology series created by BJ Novak. Darya also directed the entire second season (8 episodes) of a popular Russian series currently streaming on Amazon Europe as Russian Affairs. Her debut feature film Crystal Swan was Belarus’s first entry into the Academy Awards Best Foreign Language category in 22 years. Crystal Swan opened the prestigious Karlovy Vary “East of the West” competition, later winning Grand Prix at the Odessa Film Festival, Grand Prix at the Almaty International Film Festival, Grand Prix at the Tbilisi International Film Festival, FIPRESCI at the Bratislava IFF, Youth Jury Award at the Cork Film Festival. and many others. The film also won a Nika, the Russian Academy Award.
Bio: Tatsiana Zamirovskaya is a Belarusian writer, who lives in Brooklyn, NY. She has a BA in journalism from Belarusian State University and an MFA from Bard College, NY. Tatsiana writes metaphysical and socially charged fiction about memory, ghosts, hybrid identities and borders between empires and languages. Tatsiana is the author of 3 short story collections in Russian and a novel about digital resurrection “The Deadnet”, which was published in 2021 in Moscow and was shortlisted for many Russophone book awards, receiving great critical acclaim. She is also a journalist and essayist, writing about protest art, traumatic memories and dreams. Tatsiana’s work was published in a variety of magazines (World Literature Today, E-Flux, Galaxy’s Edge, ROAR), she is a recipient of artist residency fellowships from Macdowell, Djerassi and VCCA. Her most recent book of auto-fiction/memoir essays on music and emigration “Eurydice, check if you turned off the gas stove” was published by a Belarusian publisher “Miane Niama” in Warsaw in October 2024.
Lunch will be provided