If, as they say, the first casualty of war is innocence, then this harrowing memoir from director Vladlena Sandu is the proof. Born in Crimea in the early ’80s and sent to live with her grandparents in Grozny (then Chechnya), Sandu has had some pretty bad luck in her time, to put it mildly. This hypnotic prose poem, taken from those real-life experiences, is not just an attempt to make peace with the trauma she experienced in those years but a warning about the helter-skelter of death that happens wherever and whenever war breaks out. As she says in her opening statement, “This film serves as an act of acknowledging my past and an attempt to comprehend the cycle of violence spanning generations.”

As she says this, Sandu is seen holding the head of a gorilla suit, which might seem strange

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