The incredible life story of a Soviet soldier of Tatar descent who was captured by the Nazis during WWII. Today, his daughter Sana is tracing the path of her silent father, trying to understand what made him the man she knew as a child, through his diaries, as well as various personal and public archives and registries.
As she accompanies Sana in her journey, filmmaker Aliona van der Horst excavates film archives, to find traces of those millions of Soviet soldiers who were caught in the crossfire of fighting between dictators, who were there but were easily left out of the narrative of the global war.
As she reappropriates the archival footage through the mixed techniques of double pass, zoom-in, and colorization, the filmmaker searches for the soul of the image, for those small and subtle remnants of a massive, yet casually omitted, human tragedy. Softly, but determinately the film starts unfolding this history, breaking sixty years of silence.
Nominated for the IDFA Award for Best Dutch Documentary and the Beeld en Geluid IDFA ReFrame Award
Credits
Director
Aliona van der Horst
Production
Ilja Roomans for Docmakers
Cinematography
Rogier Timmermans
Editing
Gys Zevenbergen
Sound
Rik Meier
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More infoIDFA history
2021
World Premiere
International Competition
International Competition
2019
Round Table Pitch