After her parents’ divorce, six-year-old Vladlena moves from Crimea to Grozny, not yet aware of the changes that lie ahead. When war breaks out in Chechnya, it deeply affects her city and family. Years later, the filmmaker reflects on her childhood in this poetic, autobiographical hybrid film, exploring how cycles of violence shape children—and how healing and change are possible.
Vladlena Sandu
Born in Crimea (Ukraine) in 1982, she is a filmmaker and theatre director whose work explores war trauma, dictatorship, colonialism, and sexual trafficking. She grew up in Grozny during the Chechen War and was later displaced to southern Russia. After graduating in film directing from VGIK (Moscow), she completed a postgraduate degree in Aesthetics and Cultural Theory. Her films have been screened at Rotterdam, Leipzig DOC, Berlinale, Series Mania, GoEast, and other festivals, and have won several international awards. After fleeing Russia in 2022, following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she continued her artistic work in Amsterdam. There, she created the award-winning performance ‘The Rainbow Cinema’ (2023). She is a 2025 European Theatre Academy participant. Sandu is currently developing a film musical about the sexual exploitation of young girls in Europe. Her feature debut ‘Memory’ (2025) had its premiere at Venice Film Festival, in the Giornati degli Autori.
DIRECTOR
Vladlena Sandu
SCREENPLAY
Vladlena Sandu
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Liza Popova
EDITOR
Vladlena Sandu
SOUND
Philippe Grivel
PRODUCTION
Yanna Buryak, Ludovic Henry, Raymond van der Kaaij, Kirsi Saivosalmi
