Welded Together | WATCH DOCS

Anastasiya Miroshnichenko’s film offers a rare uncensored living portrait of contemporary Belarus. Katia, a teenage welder, against all odds, fights for a better future for her younger sister, in a story that pierces even the hardest of hearts. Despite her youth, Katia possesses immense inner strength. Each day she endures grueling physical labor while contending with entrenched misogyny, suffocating bureaucracy, and the ghosts of her past. The cinematography captures a stark, haunting beauty in the mud-soaked landscapes of rural Belarus, a world numbed by poverty and vodka. Though devoid of overt political statements, Miroshnichenko’s film vividly reveals what it means for an individual to stand alone against an authoritarian system, and what daily life looks like in a country where every step toward change demands heroic effort. 

Konrad Wirkowski