MEMORY

A DOCUMENTARY POEM TO DEATH WITH LOVE

90' | Russia, France, Netherlands, Kosovo | 2023
Budget: € 407k
Writer-Director: Vladlena Sandu
Producer: Yanna Buryak
Сo-producers: Karim Aitouna, Raymond van der Kaaij, Eroll Bilibani
Production companies: Mimesis, Revolver, Haut Les Mains, BZ
Supported by: IDFA Bertha Fund, Aide Au Cinema Du Monde - CNC

Teaser

synopsis

Vladlena was born in Crimea in 1982. After her parents’ divorce, atthe age of 6, she moves to her mother’s homeland in Grozny, whereshe enters the first grade at school. The Soviet Union falls apart. Crimea, where her father lives, becomes part of Ukraine. Suddenly, her Russian-speaking classmates and friends are leaving the Chechen republic. This is related to the resurgence of a nationalconflict that began with the native Chechens’ deportation to Kazakhstan in 1944.

Chechens are returning to Chechnya en masse. Her Russian neighbours are murdered and the lives of her family members are threatened. Military operations begin in the city of Grozny. Vladlena’s grandfather dies. Vladlena’s mother is wounded and becomes handicapped. Finally, her family comes under an armed attack. Vladlena manages to escape.

In 1998 she receives the status of a displaced person in Russia. The experience of war leaves its mark and leads her to develop PTSD. In this autobiographical film, Vladlena turns to her childhood memories, surviving family archives, and historical artifacts, as well asher deepest traumatic experiences in order to find an answer to aquestion that continues to haunt her: why did her family choose toremain in a war zone.

STRUCTURE

The film is constructed around Vladlena Sandu's memories of her immediate family members and their lives in Russia, the Chechen Republic, and Crimea, as well as her ancestors’ surviving memories from both Vladlena’s mother’s and father’s lineage, all of which are visualised through reenactments and recounted through voiceover. These stories are fragments of memories Vladlena has preserved and documented over a period of 20 years. The narrative consists of chapters that follow the events that unfolded since Vladlena Sandu’s move to Chechnya from Crimea as a child, as she grew up during the Chechen war between 1994 and 1998, and up until she receives a refugee status in Russia. The story is told in present tense and is narrated by Vladlena through voice over, from the first person.

CHAPTERS

1. ARRIVAL IN GROZNY
2. MEETING CHILDREN. THE BIRTHDAY
3. MY LEFT ARM
4. THE FIRST OF SEPTEMBER
5. DICTATION
6. THE RAINBOW MOVIE THEATER
7. THE COYPUS
8. MY NAME
9. MOM’S ARRIVAL
10. MY MOM’S AN ACTRESS
11. THE PIANO
12. THE LITTLE OCTOBRISTS
13. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARXISM AND LENINISM
14. HYPNOSIS
15. “CHEEEZE”
16. THE COUP
17. LENIN’S GONE
18. THE MOTHERLAND
19. SHAME
20. HOW GRANDMA MET GRANDPA
21. THE AXE
22. STANDING IN LINE FOR BREAD
23. BEST FRIEND
24. GODFORGIVETHEM
25. THE BLACK HEAD
26. THE LINE FOR BONES
27. QUEEN OF THE NIGHT
28. THE ZIKR
29. CLASSES ARE CANCELED
30. SPAWN
31. CAKE
32. THE MILITARY ID CARD
33. MOM’S HAT
34. GREEN RIBBONS
35. SNOW
36. NEW YEAR’S
37. ICE CREAM
38. THE RED CAR
39. FOUR-HANDED
40. TRIP FOR WATER
45. CAMP PLANET
46. MOM AND THE SEA
47. A MEETING WITH MY FATHER
48. POPPIES
49. HIGH
50. THE DECISION
51. THE HANGAR
52. FINGERS
53. MOM, DAD, AND ME
55. THE BROKEN ARM
56. LETTER TO MOM
57. IT STARTED RAINING
58. GREAT-GRANDPA
59. THE BULLET
60. CANDLES AND A KNITTED SWEATER
61. ELECTRICITY
62. HAPPY ENGLISH
63. GRANDPA’S DEATH
64. THE ATTACK
65. LEAVING GROZNY

AUTEUR’S INTENTION

From 1989–1998 I lived in the Chechen Republic. I developed PTSD due to the war, scenes of violence from which still project themselves onto my daily life.

The documentary short film Holy God, my graduation project at the VGIK, explores the war in Chechnya and how it affected my family. The feature-length documentary Memory is my second film about our family history and how greatly their lives were influenced by the events of the Civil War, World War II, and the Chechen War. Our family history is closely linked with two regions of modern Russia: Crimea, my birthplace and my father’s homeland, and Chechnya, my mother’s homeland, where I grew up.

Memory is и a cross media project and part of an undetermined cycle of work about trauma I intend to produce, as well as an attempt at a broader comprehension of my personal tragedy and its meaning for the world. Immersed into the analysis of my memories, I am looking to find a way to convert negative energy into positive energy, overcome my addiction to extreme emotions and create a work of art that heals.

The combination of innocence and fear reveals the artistic vision behind the work, that talks about a child’s experience of war. The pathos of the form and style in which the story is told, serves to highlight the triumphant nature of warfare, exposing our “death drive”.

«In 1998 our family was attacked.
We managed to escape, and we left Grozny.
We kept silent about it between us all the time».

«Holy God» – a self-portrait film and Vladlena Sandu’s VGIK graduation project. Produced by Rock Films.

AUTEUR’S FILMOGRAPHY

Vladlena* Sandu was born in her father’s homeland of Crimea in 1982. After her parents divorced, she moved to her mother’s native city of Grozny in the Chechen Republic. She lived through six years of war as a child and teenager. In 1998 she emigrated to mainland Russia and received the status of an Internally Displaced Person.

* The name ‘Vladlena’ is a name invented during Soviet times, to honor the Soviet Union’s chief ideologist, Vladimir Lenin. The word is essentially a portmanteau of VLADimir and LENin, with an ‘a’ added to the end, to form the female version of the name.

In 2011 she graduated from Rodchenko Art School. In 2016 she graduated from the VGIK (All-Russian Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography), where she studied film directing on a BA course led by Alexei Uchitel. In 2019 she graduated from Boris Yukhananov’s Studio of Independent Direction.

Vladlena Sandu’s VGIK debut, the short feature film Kira, received the jury’s special mention award and critic’s choice award at Kinotavr 2015, as well as awards for best direction and cinematography at the VGIK International Film Festival in 2015. She graduated with the short documentary film Holy God, produced by Rock Films. The film received production funds from the Russian Ministry of Culture but failed to pass the censorship laws and struggled to obtain a distribution certificate because of the issues it raised.

Holy God won awards at multiple national and international film festivals, including the Apricot Tree International Documentary Film Festival and ZagrebDox 2017. The film had its international premiere in official competition at Leipzig DOK 2016, and was also in official competition at Rotterdam 2017.

Her latest short film, Eight Images from the Life of Nastya Sokolova, had its world premiere in official competition at Rotterdam 2018 and won the award for Best Short Film at Spirit of Fire 2018. In 2018 this short docufiction, co-directed by Alina Kotova and produced by Cosmosfilm, also featured in official competition at IndieLisboa and was rated Best Eastern and Central European Short Documentary with the Silver Eye Award by the Institute of Documentary Film.

In 2019 she wrote and directed the eight-part series Identification for Premier in Russia, which had its world premiere in official competition at Series Mania. In 2019 the series was also presented at the Moscow International Film Festival and Kinotavr In Russia, in official competition at the Geneva International Film Festival and the Berlinale twice, first in 2020 as part of the European Film Market, with a special screening at Zoo Palast and then as part of the eighth edition of the Berlinale Series Market in 2021 before premiering to high acclaim on Premier in February 2022.

Vladlena pursued her studies for a Postgraduate Art degree at the VGIK in the Department of Aesthetics, History, and Theory of Culture. The subject of her dissertation is The Artistic Representation of Spirituality (Based on European Films of the 21st Century). She has published three academic articles but was forced to abandon her studies due to Russia’s war with Ukraine. She has since fled to the Netherlands.

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FILMOGRAPHY

2022 Identification / TV Series
2018 Eight Images From The Life Of Nastya Sokolova / documentary short film
2016 Holy God / documentary short film
2015 Tamerlan’s Love / documentary short film
2015 Kira / fiction short film
2014 Orlovi / documentary short film
2012 Diana / documentary short film

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PRODUCER’S NOTE

This film is not only about the Chechen war, but about how war is seen through the eyes of a child. It is about the young victims of such events, who experience the consequences of war trauma for the rest of their lives.

We are interested in partnerships to raise public and private funds in Russia, as well as international grants. We hope to cooperate with NGO’s and human rights organizations that will help highlight the issues surrounding warfare and post traumatic stress disorder, and help us reach out to its young victims. This is why the project has been conceived and developed as a cross media project, which currently compromises a feature documentary film, an exhibition and impact campaign. We are focused on participating in co-production forums and film markets, which already enabled us to establish successful cooperations with experienced European co-producers and where we are now looking for international sales agents and distributors who can develop the right strategy for the project with Mimesis for a global audience outreach.

Currently, we are proud to have the support of the IDFA Bertha Fund and Aide Au Cinema Du Monde - CNC, thanks to Raymond van der Kaaij and Kirsi Sai from Revolver (Netherlands), Karim Aitouna from Haut Les Mains (France) and Blerta Zeqiri and Eroll Bilibani from BZ SH.P.K. (Kosovo). We were equally supported with numerous LOI’s from various Russian and international organizations, most notably by: Best Friends Forever (Belgium), Garage Museum of Modern Art (Russia), Rotterdam IFF (Netherlands), Berlinale (Germany).

Team

Daria Litvinova

Education
National Research University Higher School of Economics graphic design, British Higher School of Design Fashion Styling, production designer for cinema and television at the Moscow School of Design, theater designer at the British Higher School of Design (theater design).

Selected filmography
2023 - Memory, feature, 90 min., Vladlen Sandu.
2022 - Minsk, feature, full-lengt, Boris Guts (art production together with Johannes Waldma).
2022 - Identification, feature series, Vladlena Sandu.
2017 - Storge, fiction short, Katya Selenkina

Liza Popova
Born in the city of Perm. Graduated from the cinematography department of VGIK. Was a participant in the program Extracurricular Practices with the support of the MIEFF festival and the VII Moscow International Biennale of Young Art.

Cinematography
2023 - Memory, feature, 90 min., Vladlen Sandu.
2022 - Symphony, exp., 11 min., Alexey Evstigneev.
2020 - The Year of the White Moon, doc., 25 min., Maxim Pechersky.
2019 - The Golden Buttons, doc., 20 min., Alexey Evstigneev.
2018 - Not far away, doc., 13 min., Alexey Evstigneev.

‍Video works
Outro video for Sonic Death.
Video for the Re-enchanted exhibition at the Voskhod online gallery.
The Struggle is Real video performance by Kurver Torrodsen for the exhibition at GES-2.
Peak-peak! a city project of the Four Museums for deaf children.