Memory

After her parents’ separation, six-year-old Vladlena Sandu moves from Crimea to Grozny. There, in 1994, she becomes caught up in the Russian Federation’s war of occupation against the Chechen people. Her family’s life fractures — friends flee, neighbours vanish, and the city around her turns to ruin. Decades later, Sandu revisits those years in Memory, transforming personal trauma into lyrical, haunting cinema. Combining archival images, miniature tableaux, and surreal re-enactments, she rebuilds her past through a child’s eyes — where King Kong becomes a guardian, and play a form of survival. Echoing Tarkovsky, Pasolini, and Parajanov yet unmistakably her own, Sandu’s film is a thought-provoking, existential exploration of the experience of war — confronting us with a haunting question: how can the cycle of violence that shapes children and is passed through generations be broken? Hypnotic, challenging, and never anything less than unforgettable, Memory is a staggering achievement — one of the most original and daring films of the year.