War onscreen, whether fictive or documentary, is often a sort of highlight reel: the excitement and terror of battle, cities in flames, the devastated aftermath. It’s infrequent that a film dedicate itself to the disorientation of civilian survival in a long-term war zone, when everyday life goes on to an extent despite a surreal atmosphere of constant threat, and the uncertainty of any future at all.
That largely interior state is what director Olga Chernykh seeks to capture in “A Picture to Remember,” which opened the 2023 International Documentary Film Festival. Her family having already endured various erasures during the Russian Revolution, World War II and the fall of the Soviet Union, Chernykh catalogs the remaining evidence of their past as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine once again threatens to wipe the slate brutally “clean.”
This arresting short feature, which mixes elements of film diary, experimentalism, reportage and archival assembly,...
That largely interior state is what director Olga Chernykh seeks to capture in “A Picture to Remember,” which opened the 2023 International Documentary Film Festival. Her family having already endured various erasures during the Russian Revolution, World War II and the fall of the Soviet Union, Chernykh catalogs the remaining evidence of their past as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine once again threatens to wipe the slate brutally “clean.”
This arresting short feature, which mixes elements of film diary, experimentalism, reportage and archival assembly,...
- 11/13/2023
- by Dennis Harvey
- Variety Film + TV
How does it feel to have your feature debut open one of the largest documentary festivals in the world? To director Olga Chernykh, whose “A Picture to Remember” opens the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), it feels like a “gift from the universe.”
“A Picture to Remember” is an essay-style account of the war from the perspective of three generations of women within the director’s family. Chernykh, who was granted financial support from the festival’s Bertha Fund and was part of this year’s IDFA Project Space, is thrilled to have her debut premiere at the festival that so greatly supported her filmmaking journey. “When I visited IDFA I kept imagining that one day I could be here with my film. At that point, I was so far from finishing the film that it felt only like a dream.”
“IDFA does a great job in supporting filmmakers...
“A Picture to Remember” is an essay-style account of the war from the perspective of three generations of women within the director’s family. Chernykh, who was granted financial support from the festival’s Bertha Fund and was part of this year’s IDFA Project Space, is thrilled to have her debut premiere at the festival that so greatly supported her filmmaking journey. “When I visited IDFA I kept imagining that one day I could be here with my film. At that point, I was so far from finishing the film that it felt only like a dream.”
“IDFA does a great job in supporting filmmakers...
- 11/8/2023
- by Rafa Sales Ross
- Variety Film + TV
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