Directing
The film DAYMOHK tells the story of Chechen dance star and choreographer Ramzan Ahmadov, whose dance group Daymohk has found refuge with Chechnya’s current president Kadyrov. Momentarily postponing the extinction of this age-old folk dance. But the sacrifice this move takes, is great: in an attempt to save his country’s tradition, Ramzan collaborates with the authorities and sacrifices what he loves the most.
The film is about the activities of Anna Politkovskaya in the last seven years of her life.
Dreams of three generations of rural residents on the Volga. The old people talk about their first love, which is best remembered in memory. A young country boy - about how he was in the war in Afghanistan, and how she changed his life. Sixteen-year-old boy remembers childhood, when he swam carelessly, ran, was in love with the girl. This film - funny and sad stories of people of different ages, who believe that their best and strongest times are already in the past, perhaps, just like the whole country.
Portrait of a traditional youth dance group from Grozny, Chechnya, on tour in Europe. Images of daily life in ruined Grozny combined with poetic visuals of performances. The art of survival.
This film is a triptych with three stories, involving three characters. They live in different parts of Europe: Western Europe -Catalonia (Spain); Eastern Europe -Lithuania; and in the new Europe -Georgia (Akhazia). They have experienced, in different parts of the 20Th century, civil wars and dictatorships. They share the same fate: they stayed where they were born. This film is about people who decide to do nothing in times of war, oppression and occupation. They choose a life amidst the ruins of their past. Even when this choice leads to loneliness: living a dream, not a reality. Alone, between the graves of their loved ones, they spend their last days. They have frozen their lives by protecting themselves from the outside world.
Chechnya's struggle for independence, as seen through the eyes of three friends who grew up in the Chechen capital of Grozny.
For twelve years, military photographer Oleg Klimov recorded the collapse of the Soviet Union on film. He was present in almost all military and ethnic conflicts in the 90s. His photographs were on the front pages of many Western newspapers, as dumb witnesses of the wars in the former Soviet Union. But Oleg’s career also influenced his personality. After a few quiet years, he suddenly finds a military trauma in himself. Driven by inner longing, he returns to some places where he photographed people during the war: in Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and Chechnya in order to find those who are depicted in the pictures.
Art, dance, music and theater know no boundaries and do not need any language other than the language of art. In times of Glasnost and Perestroika in Russia it went well in the field of cultural relations between the Netherlands and Russia. At the time, an intense collaboration developed between the Dutch and Russian artists, resulting in friendships that continue to this day.
After Russia started a fully-fledged war against Ukraine, the state's repressive machine against its own civil society started spinning with even greater velocity and the law system, which barely functioned before, eventually turned into a mechanism of abuse and brutality.
In Russia, since 2017, 35 criminal cases have been opened against teenagers on charges of preparing mass murders, terrorist attacks or extremist actions. All these cases are distinguished by the fact that there are no victims in them, only statements by the investigation that the schoolchildren planned to do something. The accusation is based on drawings, correspondence on the Internet and photographs.
In the heart of the Eurasian continent, the ancient center of the world where the Silk Road connected China to Europe, the circus is a deeply rooted cultural phenomenon. This film focuses on two circus artists, whose lifelong friendship under the dictatorship in Uzbekistan is affected by the differing political choices they make under the dictatorshop in Uzbekistan.
