Darya Zhuk to Follow ‘Crystal Swan’ with ‘Exactly What It Seems’

Belarus-born director Darya Zhuk will follow her debut feature “Crystal Swan” with “Exactly What It Seems,” a dark science fiction satire of contemporary authoritarianism.

The film – produced by Allfilm’s Volia Chajkouskaya and Ivo Felt (Estonia) and Violetta Krechetova – is based on the original short story by Tatsiana Zamirovskaya, who will serve as a co-writer. It will be shot in Belarusian, English and Russian.

Allfilm, co-founded by Felt, is also behind Oscar-nominated “Tangerines” and Klaus Häro’s “The Fencer,” nominated for a Golden Globe.  

In “Exactly What It Seems,” a married couple – Nadia and Fedor – is seeking political asylum in the US. They find themselves unexpectedly teleported back to Belarus through a mysterious quantum technology created by scientists under the dictatorial regime. Hunted like criminals in the woods of their homeland, they must mend their dysfunctional relationship to secure their return to safety.

“It’s not an effects-heavy film, but a grounded version of our reality with one assumption: that this technology exists and everyone who’s nostalgic about Belarus can be immediately teleported back. It seems to work only one way, though, as only Belarusian memories are stored on the server,” Zhuk told Variety.

“Unfortunately, for some, this technology is their worst nightmare. My protagonists are wanted for political activism in their homeland, so it’s not safe for them to be back.”

Together with Tatyana Zamirovskaya, Zhuk decided to use genre to “attack” issues that would be hard to digest with a more realistic drama.

“Satire and science fiction are great in creating just the right distance from the harsh reality of the current dictatorial regime and in examining the recent emotional trauma of a failed revolution in Belarus in 2020. We are also looking to open up this story to a wider audience who might know nothing about current events,” said Zhuk.

Previously, Zhuk’s 2018 drama “Crystal Swan,” about a young DJ in the 1990s who hoped to realize her American Dream, was selected by Belarus as its submission for the Oscars’ Best Foreign Language Film category. It was the country’s first submission in 22 years.

“It opened a lot of doors,” she recalled.

Since then, she has written and directed for Apple TV+, FX/Hulu, Netflix (detective drama “Zato”) and Amazon Europe (“Russian Affairs”), with some of that work – like Apple’s “Little America” she noted – being “quite personal.”

“While making ‘Crystal Swan,’ my team and I reinvented the process of how one can produce a film without the support of the local film fund. We are looking to do it again with this project – on a bigger scale and in a harsher political climate.” 

“Exactly What It Seems” will be “in conversation” with her previous work.

“It touches on the tortured relationship with my homeland and the cracks of the American Dream as it’s experienced by new immigrants,” said Zhuk, who studied filmmaking at Harvard University and then at Columbia University.

“It’s a dystopian science fiction drama that explores the themes of toxic nostalgia and the search for identity against the backdrop of a totalitarian regime. I realize that my main character, Velya, in ‘Crystal Swan’ was also searching for her identity, lost between the chasm of being from Belarus but wanting to be free in America. Except now, there is an even deeper need to examine the core of who you are and your deep fears.”

Belarus-born, Estonia-based producer Volia Chajkouskaya was selected for this year’s Locarno’s Match Me! Initiative and is also developing “Mono,” about a woman trying to understand what happened to her when she lost half of her hearing as a teen

“I am so excited about this project,” said Chajkouskaya, who has been blacklisted by the Belarusian regime. “It speaks about my homeland Belarus, where I haven’t been for five years, and deals with timely and universal topics of totalitarian regimes, displacement and identity.”

“It has an amazing team of people – and amazing professionals – I’ve known for many years and whose work I just adore. I believe we’ll find resources to bring this project to life as soon as possible.”