Andrei Kureichik is a Belarusian playwright and stage director, publisher, and civil activist, who gained international recognition as a political playwright following the contested presidential elections and subsequent events in Belarus in August 2020. As member of Coordination Council of Belarus he was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by the European Parliament in 2020. After that, he was violently pushed into exile. Among his most prominent works is the play Insulted. Belarus, a response to the 2020 Belarusian presidential elections and the subsequent violent crackdown by Alexander Lukashenko’s regime. This play, which has been translated into 39 languages, has seen over 200 readings and performances worldwide, including in the U.S., the EU, Hong Kong, Ukraine, and Nigeria. Widely praised in media outlets such as Plays International and Europe, Contemporary Theatre Review, the Boston Globe, Theatre Times, Dialog, Moscow Times, and American Theatre, Insulted. Belarus has become a vital piece of global protest theatre and art.
Andrei holds an Master degree in Law and Political Science of Belarusian State University and degree in Theatre directing from Oleg Tabakov, the Artistic director of the Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre.
In addition to his theatre work, Andrei is a prolific screenwriter and filmmaker, with more than 40 film and television projects to his name, including the award-winning films Above the Sky (2012) and Garash (2015). His feature films Liberté, Okrestina, and documentary The Voices of the New Belarus have further solidified his reputation as a fearless storyteller committed to human rights and artistic freedom. Voiced by Professor Timothy Snyder and actors of the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale, this film became an Oslo Freedom Forum grand event and again raised the topic of Belarusian prisoners in the world.