Filmmaker, photographer, and journalist, Maksim Shved was born in Minsk, Belarus in 1979. After graduating in 2002 the law department of the Belorussian State University Maksim started film education. In 2016 he graduated from the Wajda Film School in Warsaw.

His documentary “Pure Art” was premiered at the Krakow film festival and won some prizes at world festivals (the best film in BEAST film festival 2021, the best director prize in Artdocfest in 2019).

As a filmmaker, Maksim was documenting the presidential elections in Belarus. On the night from 10th to 11th of August 2020, he was roughly detained and beaten by special police forces and later put to torture at the police department and imprisoned. Despite officially fixed injures the police didn’t bring an action to his case. After release, Maksim continued filming the protests in Belarus. He also transformed his imprisonment story into the film “What will we do tomorrow?”

Now the situation in Belarus is still very nervous and depressive. Every day someone is arrested and the number of non-governmental organizations is dismissed. Maksim is at risk as a filmmaker and journalist but also as an ex-prisoner because the authorities prosecute this category of their opponents most probably.