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It’s strange that so many of the movies about “The American Dream” actually take place in America, especially when a Kafka-esque comedy like Darya Zhuk’s “Crystal Swan” — Belarus’ first Oscar submission in 22 years — is so effective at capturing the hopefulness of someone who’s seized by the promise of a better life, and the desperation she feels when that promise starts to slip through her fingers.

Velya, a self-possessed and pixie-like young DJ living in the cold Stalinist mausoleum of Minsk circa 1996, has always felt like a fish out of water. Played with sublime prickliness by Alina Nassibulina, she’s a true individual in a collective society, like a gnarled weed sprouting through a crack in the concrete of the Eastern bloc. While most of the people she knows in post-Soviet Belarus are struggling to reconcile the dark pall of the past with the strong pull of the future,...

"I want to see the birthplace of house music." This looks fantastic! Watch the first trailer for a film titled Crystal Swan from Belarus, the feature directorial debut of filmmaker Darya Zhuk. This is premiering at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival starting at the end of this week - I'll be there, and this is one of my highlights. Set in 1996, Crystal Swan is about a young Belarusian woman named Evelina who is trying desperately to get a visa to the USA so she can pursue her dreams of becoming a DJ. However, a typo in her application forces her to figure things out and possibly cause everything to fall apart. Alina Nasibullina stars, and the cast includes Ivan Mulin, Yury Borisov, Svetlana Anikey, & Ilya Kapanets. This reminds me of Mia Hansen-Løve's excellent film about a young DJ called Eden, but there is a bit more dry humor in this one.