UK Premiere; Sarajevo Film Festival 2024 winner for best documentary film; 2023 International Documentary Film Festival
Wheelchair accessible, English subtitles, Pay-what-you-can tickets (£2-£8)
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Olga Chernykh’s A Picture to Remember is a deeply personal documentary that delves into the devastation of war through the intimate lenses of family ties, memory, and survival. Chernykh, who grew up in Donetsk but now resides in Kyiv, navigates the dissonance between her past and present, reflecting on her roots in the occupied Donbas and her sense of identity in a fractured homeland. The film weaves together a kaleidoscopic blend of archival footage, family home videos, and observational scenes, where the lost and the rescued, the mundane and the profound — such as Olga’s father’s epic paintings and the tissue specimens examined under her mother’s microscope — come together in an attempt to restore a disrupted sense of time.
At the core of the film are several video calls with Chernykh’s grandmother, Zoryna Dyadyk, who has remained in the occupied city of Donetsk. These conversations form the emotional thread that ties the film together, portraying Zoryna’s resilient spirit with tenderness and nuance. For viewers outside Ukraine, her portrayal serves as a poignant reminder of how ordinary people in wartime should be seen—not as victims or saints, but as human beings, full of grace and strength in their everyday lives.
The film also engages with history, drawing on Dziga Vertov’s Symphony of Donbas, a Soviet-era tribute to the region’s industrial might. In contrast, Chernykh’s contemporary perspective underscores the enduring resilience of the human spirit in the face of conflict. With a haunting score by Maryana Klochko, A Picture to Remember is both a tribute to survival and a reflection on the fragility of home, identity, and memory in a world torn apart by war.
Content notes: war, grief
Curated by Natalia Guzevataya
Trailer
Short: In the Noise of the Downpour (Dir. Oleksandr Stupak, Ukraine)
This is an experimental and poetic contemplation of life through the prism of war. It is a premonition of global world changes... and a hope for the sanity of humanity. It is a parable about man in nature and nature in man, about cycles, beginning and end - the path to eternity. Autumn is heading towards winter, and we are so eager for light.
Content notes: allusions to war
Access notes: flashing colours and lights