Synopsis
Born in Crimea, Vladlena Sandu was sent at the age of six to live with her grandparents in Grozny. As the USSR collapsed, a terrible war broke out between Chechnya and Russia. Through breathtakingly beautiful cinematic tableaux, she attempts to exorcise this past that consumed her childhood and to examine the violence passed down from generation to generation.
Vladlena Sandu
Born in Crimea, Ukrainian SSR in 1982, Vladlena Sandu is a filmmaker and theatre director, whose work explores war trauma, dictatorship, colonialism and sexual trafficking. She grew up in Grozny during the Russian-Chechen War and was later displaced to southern Russia. Later, Sandu graduated in film directing from VGIK (Moscow) and completed a postgraduate degree in Aesthetics and Cultural Theory. Her films have been screened at Berlinale, Rotterdam, DOK Leipzig, Series Mania, GoEast, and other festivals, receiving several international awards. After fleeing Russia in 2022, following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she continued her artistic work in Amsterdam. Her feature debut Memory, based on autobiographical childhood memories, opened the competition program of Giornate degli Autori at the 82nd Venice Film Festival in 2025 and received the People's Choice Award.
Filmography
Diyana (2012), Orlovs (2013), Kira (2015), Love of Tamerlane (2015), Holy God (2016), Eight Images from the Life of Nastya Sokolova (2018), Identification (series, 2022), No Nation Without Culture (2022), Memory (2025).
