Horizons / Memory / France, Netherlands 2025
Beginning filmmakers often draw on their own lives, but few infuse their debut with such a memorable combination of originality, skill, and intensity as Vladlena Sandu. She was just six years old when, following her parents’ divorce, she moved from Crimea to Grozny, which Russia’s 1994 invasion of Chechnya turned into hell on Earth. Her unique and colorful multimedia collage recalls the films of Andrei Tarkovsky and Sergei Parajanov, but from a broader perspective it remains a fundamentally personal film exploring the landscape of her childhood, where innocent imagination is mixed with generational trauma, unending circles of violence, and the cruelty of war.
Vojtěch Kočárník
98 min / Color, Black & White, DCP
Director Vladlena Sandu
/ Screenplay Vladlena Sandu
/ Dir. of Photography Liza Popova
/ Sound Philippe Grivel
/ Editor Vladlena Sandu
/ Producer Yanna Buryak
/ Production Mimesis, Limitless, Revolver Amsterdam
/ Coproduction Ludovic Henry, Raymond Van Der Kaaij, Kirsi Saivosalmi
/ Cast Amina Taisumova, Selima Agamirzaeva, Vladlena Sandu
/ Sales Loco Films
Vladlena Sandu. Selected filmography: Diana (2012, short doc.), Kira (2015, short), Holy God (2016, short doc.), Eight Images from the Life of Nastya Sokolova (Vosem kartin iz zhizni Nasti Sokolovoy), 2018, short doc.), No Nation Without Culture (Bez kultury net natsii, 2022, short doc.), Memory (2025, doc.).
Loco Films
8 passage Piver, 75011, Paris
France
Phone: +33 7 84 20 89 68
E-mail: [email protected]
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