NZIFF 2025 Craccum Coverage | Imago

Review by Daniel C.

This documentary is a window into the Chechnya of the past 80 years told through normal people. It’s also about director, Déni Oumar Pitsaev’s, own personal life. At its core, nothing happens in this documentary. There’s no development from start to end, and if you really think about it – not really anything changed by the end of the documentary compared to the beginning. At first it’s not even clear what the film is documenting. It’s almost sort of a vlog. Just a series of unscripted, real-world conversations between people talking about their everyday life, and following the natural progressions of conversation, they change subjects here and there, talking about a whole range of topics. It seems to me that the director made this film more for himself than for anyone else. Maybe so that he could come to terms with his own family and upbringing.

I really like just listening to people talk about their life, so I loved this documentary. Old people talking to each other about how much the times have changed, young people talking about their hopes and aspirations, etc.  At the end of the documentary, with the conversation in the forest, I think that was a particularly beautiful scene and it’s my favourite.

Apart from that, I can’t really put my finger on this film. There’s not really anything going on, but it feels like a lot happens. It’s funny at times, it’s uncomfortable at times, sometimes it’s really heartwarming, sometimes it hits too close to home. For me, I liked a lot about this documentary, but at the same time I can see a lot of people who would basically feel nothing from watching it – which is totally okay, it’s just a really strange film.