The Swan Song of Fedor Ozerov

His guitar is out of tune and Fedor (25) isn’t in the best of moods. At the end of the year, the threat of World War III is constantly on the news, which he listens to hungover. While his sister Nina is focused on activism, the apathetic musician becomes active for one thing only: his desire to form a band and write songs. But for that he needs his missing lucky pullover! In ever more obsessive fashion, he sets out in search of the magical object, which is linked to his hope for creative inspiration: an odyssey-cum-detective story driven by great music that leads him through the flats of friends, women and strangers and into conversations with comical characters whose angst is only exceeded by their egos. Everyone here is looking for meaning, kindred spirits or just some intimacy in the face of the end of the world. Combining wit, poetry, Orpheus & Eurydice, orcs & elves and short magical animations, Yuri Semashko creates a portrait of a creative generation defying the weight of the world in a friendly, innocent tone. Born in Belarus and now in exile in Poland, he allows the real horror of repressive systems to simmer under the surface. His microbudget debut is humorous by design. (Alena Martens)

Now based in Warsaw, Yuri Semashko was born in Minsk, Belarus, in 1993 and is an engineer by training. A self-taught filmmaker, he has created several short films and animations, including Blood and Karaoke (exground filmfest 2024), Garbage Head (International Short Film Festival Oberhausen 2023) and When I Was a General (2021). In 2024, he finished filming his first feature film, The Swang Song of Fedor Ozerov, which was presented in November 2024 at the Work in Progress session at Cottbus Film Festival.

Director Yuri Semashko. Screenplay Yuri Semashko. Cinematography Siarhei Kavaliou. Editing Yuri Semashko. Music Sinie Gory. Sound Design Laura Matissek. Sound Yuri Semashko. Production Design Yuri Semashko. Costumes Anastasiya Ryabova. Make-Up Anastasiya Ryabova. Casting Yuri Semashko. Animation Maja Bühler. Producer Kęstutis Drazdauskas. Co-Producers Marc-Daniel Dichant, Christian Riegel, Leonid Kalitenya, Vladimir Kozlov. Production company Artbox (Vinius, Lithuania). With Viachaslau Kmit, Violetta Rahachova, Pavel Haradnitski, Anastasiya Rysik, Alexey Lyubchenko, Pavel Mikhalenia, Mike Mazur, Mikhail Zui.

Films: 2021: Kogda ya byl general / When I Was A General (short film). 2022: Musornaya golova / Garbage Head (short film). 2023: Krov i karaoke / Blood and Karaoke (short film). 2025: The Swan Song of Fedor Ozerov.