No Nation Without Culture

A documentary short film by Vladlena Sandu

"While shooting my feature documentary film, Memory, in April of 2021 in Grozny, Chechnya (the birthplace of my mother and where I grew up), I felt the influence of the gigantic portraits of Putin, Kadyrov Senior and Kadyrov Junior all over the city. They observed me from everywhere. In parallel to the production of the film, we set out to capture the feeling of totalitarianism that these portraits conveyed. We got up at 4 in the morning and shot through the window of a car because such actions put us under threat of persecution. We understood that we were documenting the time of the birth of fascism in Russia."

Running Time: 17 min
Genre: Documentary
Category: Short Film
Year: 2022
Country: Netherlands, Russia
Screenplay: Vladlena Sandu
Director: Vladlena Sandu
Production: Yanna Buryak
Producers: Mimesis Production
Cinematography: Liza Papova
Editor: Vladlena Sandu
Awards:

• Best Short Film  – GoEast IFF 2023
• Official Selection – Movies That Matter Festival 2023, “Shorts: Facing the Past”

• Official Selection– GoEast Festival of Central and Eastern European Film 2023

Distribution: Donkey Films