White Snail unfolds as a haunting, tactile drama of disquiet and connection. A pale, struggling model driven toward a career in China, and a morgue technician-painter whose canvases commemorate the decaying body, in a fragile love story born in Minsk's nightmare-lit nights. Their worlds collide in unsettling milieus: hospitals, morgues, neon-drenched avenues, and dim karaoke bars.
The narrative begins from despair, a suicidal hospital admission, but evolves into glimmers of solace. Their bond, spoken in silences, is more about listening than language. Masha’s perfectionism, sculpted by modelling school, meets Misha’s morbid artistry; both live at society’s margins. Critics describe the film as a meditation on mortality and alienation, where death becomesa metaphor, and affection blooms in unexpected soil.
Shot largely in available light, street lamps, mobile screens, neon tubes, the visual palette is both documentary-stark and poetically luminous. White Snail premiered at Locarno’s main competition, earning the Special Jury Prize and dual acting awards for its leads. Subsequent festival appearances, including Sarajevo, confirmed its status as a strange, resonant hymn to youth, fragility, and uncanny empathy in troubled times.
