Tarkovsky, Paradjanov, Pasolini: when these illustrious names appear in the special thanks section of the opening credits of Vladlena Sandu's Memory [+lee también:
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ficha de la película], unveiled at the opening of the Giornate degli Autori at the 82nd Venice Film Festival, one cannot help but find the filmmaker quite daring (others would undoubtedly say presumptuous). But what follows clearly demonstrates that, while obviously not yet reaching the heights of these tutelary figures, the director has absolutely nothing to be ashamed of in terms of artistic creativity. Her first feature film, a hybrid documentary, proves to be extraordinarily inventive, with a wealth of remarkable visual and narrative ideas illustrating a sensitive, intelligent and poignant autobiographical story.

"I was there at that time. This film is an act of recognition of my past and an attempt to understand the cycle of violence passed down from generation to generation. It is dedicated to the children who are victims of dictatorships and wars." Born in Feodosia, Crimea, to a Ukrainian father and Chechen mother during the Soviet era, little Vladlena is sent to live with her maternal grandparents in Grozny at the age of six. Confused (“why am I here without my mother and father?”), she discovers the uniformity of the school (steeped in the cult of Lenin, the obligation to write with the right hand, indoctrination into the “little Octobrists”), a belligerent and punitive grandfather (raised in the Party line) whom she quickly comes to hate, escapades to the cinema, the hypnotist Alan Chumak on television, music school, etc. But three years later, the USSR collapses, Chechnya declares its independence, all values are overturned, the economic situation deteriorates daily, and in 1994, war breaks out with Russia. Now she has to survive in a devastated and dangerous city. And family secrets are revealed...

“I will become a memory for you, deep in your mind.” Accompanied by the filmmaker's voiceover recounting significant episodes from her unique childhood, like a stream of colourful flashes of memory combining dreamlike imagery, symbolic representations, photographic archives, geopolitical information and very intimate perceptions, the film paints a fascinating mosaic portrait of an individual, a territory (Chechnya) and the USSR (through historical references linked to the family), all culminating in the horrors of war (“this is how we survived”). But it is above all the formal dimension that fascinates, with Vladlena Sandu (who also wrote and edited the film) finding a way in each sequence to transcend minimalism in a splendid whirlwind of visual inventiveness using ideas that are as simple as they are original. A sensory and poetic gift for recreating reality that draws on the best sources of cinema and makes Memory an admirable work of very high artistic merit.     

Memory was produced by French company Limitless and co-produced by Dutch company Revolver Amsterdam. Loco Films handles international sales.