Near the Walnut Tree

As a child, I was filmed by my mother in the small town of Kiziljurt in Dagestan, where I lived before moving to Belgium. She filmed not only my first years of life but also her beloved sisters who were often together. The camera was an escape from the daily grind of war and the destructive Russian nineties.

What has happened after twenty-five years? The situation, the life in that town, the life of the sisters.

During present time, I take my mother’s place to film her sisters.

I follow them in the autumn of their lives. Birth, death, the mountains, the sea, their stories, their desires, their traumas: images that approach reality like a collage.