"A Picture To Remember": Ukrainian film to open the World's largest documentary film festival - IDFA in Amsterdam for the first time

On November 8th, during the opening of the 36th International Documentary Film Festival (IDFA) in Amsterdam, the world premiere of the film "A Picture To Remember" directed by Olga Chernykh will take place. Additionally, the film has been selected for participation in one of the competitive programs, Envision, which features innovative and experimental works. This information was reported by Olekso Gladushevsky on his Facebook page.

"For the first time in the 36-year history of the festival, a Ukrainian film, "A Picture To Remember," will open the IDFA, which is the world's largest documentary film festival. While Ukrainian documentaries are frequently featured in various programs at IDFA, this marks the first time a Ukrainian film will open the event," wrote Olekso Gladushevsky.

"A Picture To Remember" is a cinematic essay about the long journey of one family through war. It explores the ways three generations of women in the director's family cope with the losses they've experienced during the conflict, including the director herself, her mother, who works in the field of pathological anatomy, and her grandmother, who remains in an occupied territory.

"The idea for the film emerged several years ago when I was reevaluating the experience of emigration and war through the lens of my own family, who were forced to move from Donetsk to Kyiv in 2014. My parents left, but my grandmother and some other relatives stayed in the occupied city. I watched how they experienced the changes, adapted to the new reality, and seasoned everything with dark humor and hints of optimism," explained the director, Olga Chernykh. "When the full-scale war began, I realized that I needed to rethink the visual and emotional language of the film, find a different cinematic expression. For me, it was essential to convey the sense of loss of time and space when we suddenly find ourselves in a state where the past, present, and future are intertwined and closely connected. This story is not just about my family; it's about all of us."

Olga Chernykh's family comes from Donetsk, which has been temporarily occupied since 2014. The start of the Russian-Ukrainian war forced the family to leave their home and move to Kyiv. However, in 2022, the enemy knocked on their door again, as the full-scale invasion destroyed everything the family had worked on for so long. The new reality and the suspended state of affairs inspire the director to immerse herself in the kaleidoscope of her personal and collective memories. In a personal narrative, she takes the audience through decades of family archives and eight years of war.

"To support the talented young director Olga Chernykh in her first full-length film is a challenge we gladly accepted. The war in Ukraine changed everything, and stories that need to be told should include original female voices that found themselves in double exile," added producer Regina Maryanovska-Davidzon.