cinematography
Liza Popova
editing
Vladlena Sandu

production design
Daria Litvinova
sound
Philippe Grivel

cast
Amina Taisumova
Selima Agamirzaeva
Vladlena Sandu

productions
Mimesis
Limitless
Revolver Amsterdam
producer
Yanna Buryak
co-producers
Ludovic Henry
Raymond Van Der Kaaij
Kirsi Saivosalmi
with the support of
Aide Aux Cinémas Du Monde
CNC
Institut Français
Région Île-de-France
Netherlands Film Fund
IDFA Bertha Fund
Doha Film Institute

world sales
Loco Films
www.loco-films.com
international@loco-films.com

international press office
Marlin Sterner
manlin@manlin.se

Six-year-old Vladlena moves from Crimea to Grozny following her parents’ divorce, unaware that war will soon consume her childhood. As the Soviet Union collapses, the Chechen Republic fractures. Her Russian-speaking friends flee while deported Chechens return, reclaiming their homeland. Tensions escalate, and an armed conflict erupts. Violence engulfs the city – neighbors are murdered, her family is targeted, and Grozny becomes a battlefield. After four years of war, her mother is gravely wounded, and an armed attack forces Vladlena to flee, becoming a displaced person in Russia. In this autobiographical poetic hybrid film, Sandu revisits her traumatic childhood memories to confront a haunting question: How can the cycle of violence that shapes children and is passed through generations be broken?

2025 Memory
2022 No Nation Without Culture (short)
2018 Eight Images from
the Life of Nastya Sokolova (short)
2016 Holy God (short)
2015 Kira (short)
2013 Orlovs (short)
2012 Diyana (short)

“While working on the film Memory, I was required to submit a fictional script to the Russian Ministry of Culture in order to receive permission to shoot. This necessity to conceal the project’s true subject became part of the film’s narrative. Both of my homelands – Crimea and the Chechen Republic – remain under occupation. These are factual circumstances, but they carry human consequences across generations. The film seeks to reflect on how we process such realities: how we deal with inherited violence, and whether it is possible to transform aggression into care, or fear into love. Memory is a personal attempt to articulate these questions. It documents how I began to step outside the cycle I was born into. This film is also part of a tetralogy based on my life experience. Despite everything, I continue to believe that art can play a role in recovery. That it can help us imagine a future shaped by choice rather than coercion. Working on Memory helped me understand how the cycle of violence moves across generations and led me to ask a fundamental question: What can we do to stop it?” (Vladlena Sandu)

Vladlena Sandu (Crimea, Ukraine, 1982) 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 – based on her own experience of sexual trafficking. 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 is based on autobiographical childhood memories and the Chechen War.