A Picture to Remember
Ukrainian Cinema Club: Documentary by Olga ChernykhA Picture to Remember - dir. Olga Chernykh
In November, Amsterdam becomes a meeting point for the international documentary film community as it hosts IDFA, one of the world’s leading documentary film festivals. Over the years, IDFA has provided an important platform for Ukrainian documentary filmmakers and their work.
On 15 November, we invite you to a special screening of A Picture to Remember (2023) by Ukrainian filmmaker Olga Chernykh. Premiering as the opening film of IDFA 2023, this deeply personal documentary explores memory, family history, and the experience of living through war in Ukraine.
This year, Chernykh returns to IDFA with her new film, selected for the festival’s main programme, making this screening an opportunity to revisit her earlier work and reflect on the evolution of her filmmaking.
A Picture to Remember is an essay-style account of the war from the perspective of three generations of women. There are frequent video calls between Chernykh, her mother (a pathologist working above a morgue, where it feels surprisingly safe during bomb attacks) and her grandmother. Recordings of their conversations are interspersed with photos and videos from the family archive, and news reports, as well as images of the parasites Chernykh’s mother observes with a microscope.
The result is a kaleidoscopic and personal film. Traveling fluidly through time, it connects the current violence in Donbas with the destruction there during the Second World War—as related by Chernykh’s grandmother. A sense of absence and loss prevails throughout.