LAKE OF HAPPINESS

Director's Statement

LAKE OF HAPPINESS is a personal film for me, because the character of Jasja is based on the story of my father. He was seven years old when his mother died and my grandfather decided to send him to an orphanage. This traumatic experience in his childhood has always been a taboo topic for my father. Although he never spoke to me about it, I know that this is a topic he’s struggled with until today. That left me with a burning question: why would parents give their own children away? As a filmmaker, I tried to find a cinematic angle of view at this personal story. During my research, a good friend of mine made me a present, a new book called “Lake of Joy” by the famous Belarusian writer Viktor Martinovich. This was a key signal for me. I told him at our meeting that I wanted to use only one special episode of his novel, that I wanted to dissemble it, find its essence and re-build a new story based on my father’s experiences. For my screenplay I created a fictional character named Jasja. She comes from a small Belarusian village, like my father. It is very important for me that even though Jasja is in fact imaginary, her role in my film was played by a real orphan girl (Nastyia Plyatz).
In LAKE OF HAPPINESS I wanted to tell the drama about a strong person who at the age of nine dares to build her own way. Not every adult is ready for this choice, but Jasja was able to. We understand that she will still fight in this life.