Murad Mazayev

Elder son Mikael lives with his family in a small Chechen foothill village. He has a love of art which he hopes to pursue, and a girl whom he wishes to marry. However, upon invasion by Russian forces for the second time, he must put those things aside and leave for the mountains to defend his homeland.

Images of horror from Chechnya. Destroyed houses, people fleeing, mutilated bodies, dead children. The 14 episodes, which assemble footage from the first and second Chechen wars, do not seek to explain or comment. They record the war in its raw violence—and they do not allow the viewer to look away. Some of the footage was shot by Tarak Protsuk, a Ukrainian journalist who was killed in Baghdad in April 2003. Nine minutes, fourteen stories: shocking documents from a ravaged country.