"Banned" musicians to be shown on state TV (photo)

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A great part of our population thinks that everything which is done in Belarus is not worth paying attention to. Especially, when we speak about some creative work. In the first place, this concerns Belarusian music and movie-making. Therefore, the first Belarusian youth TV-series which involves exclusively Belarusian actors and musicians has been a risky project from the very start, also because there has been a goal to discover new names. Nevertheless, not only youth take part in the project - there are some stars as well,in the episodes, despite all prohibitions and "black lists".

"We involved many artists, – says producer and script-writer of the TV-series Andrej Kurejchyk. – Zmitser Vajtsyushkevich, Aleh Khamenka, I also invited Syarhej Mikhalok personally but he couldn't come under the reasons which did not depend on us...Also, we filmed Alyaksandr Saladukha, Zmitser Kaldun, Alyaksandr Patlis and others. I mean, we, as UNO's representatives, have no lists of those who are allowed and those who are banned".

On the last shooting day they filmed one of the first scenes of the TV-series - a great music festival which gathered all the Belarusian VIPs. According to the script, they were supposed to speak excitedly about the new band called "Perfect", which is the center of the plot and which has just sung at the festival.

It is interesting that almost none of them heard the song which the band was to perform in the TV-series. However, Andrej Kureichyk told every VIP after the shooting, inspired - "I love the way you lie!".

"I understand that if this music is crap and I have already talked about it positively this won't be a great thing, – says leader of J:Морс Uladzimir Puhach. –However, Kurejchyk asked me to do that, and I risked my reputation. Moreover, I see that people are working and they have real inspiration. Also, Andrej Kurejchyk is a good script-writer and I have no reasons to think that he will fail this time. I know the plot, it is a rather beautiful story. As for the result of the creative work - it's not a dollar to be liked by everybody".

However, not all Belarusian stars played the parts of themselves. For example, singer Venera played a producer from Moscow, and rapper Vincent played one of the musicians of the band "Perfect".

"I play the part of a keyboard player called Max, – the rapper describes his character. – This is a conscious man, oriented to Europe. He speaks Belarusian, shares European values and presents this layer of modern Belarusian youngsters. I think it will be interesting as this is all very true-like".

The Belarusian language can be heard in all the Belarusian songs in the TV-series. Besides, the songs were written by Akute, Sonica, Vincent and others. The language is also quite popular among the characters of the "Higher than the Sky", and these are not just secondary episodes.

"There are adult characters, and the main character's girlfriends are fully Belarusian-speaking, – says Andrej Kurejchyk. – We couldn't make a totally Belarusian-language project as it would not be true. Unfoortunately, we do not have environment in which people would speak only Belarusian. However, we know that a great number of iltelligentsia respect and love their language and we tried to promote it as much as we could."

According to the movie-makers' moods on the last shooting day, the TV-series is simply obliged to change the stereotype attitude to the Belarusian movie production. We will have an opportunity to check this already in Spring, as, according to Kurejchyk's plans, the series should appear on screen at one of the state TV-Channels in three months already.

The TV-series "Higher than the Sky" is shot under the auspieces of the UNO's programs. All the main characters were picked in the national casting, which involved more than two thousand participants from 30 cities of the country. As a result, only one professional actor happened to be among the 8 key characters.