Memory

Through fragments of memory and history, Vladlena Sandu returns to her childhood in a quietly poetic and deeply moving film about the imprint of war on a child’s life.

When Vladlena, as a child, moves from Crimea to Grozny following her parents’ divorce, the world around her changes. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the outbreak of war in Chechnya have a profound impact on the family. Years later, she returns to these memories in an associative and fragmentary film where a child’s questions meet the violence of history. Memory is a creative cinematic montage of childhood images and voices, influenced by Parajanov, Pasolini, and many others, in which trauma coexists with a hopeful curiosity about life and a belief in cinema as a healing force.

• Rasmus Kilander