Barzakh

by Mantas Kvedaravicius

In a Chechen city recovering after the war, a man disappears. As daily life goes on, those in search are drawn into a world where encounters with diviners and legal advisors, with the torturers and the tortured, with secret prisons and mythical lakes all become commonplace. When the disappeared do return in dreams, they are said to come from Barzakh – a land between the living and the dead.

Mantas Kvedaravicius was born in Birzai, Lithuania in 1976. He holds a Master’s Degree in cultural anthropology from the University of Oxford and is currently completing his PhD dissertation and a book manuscript on the affects of pain at the university of Cambridge. Kvedaravicius has taught university courses on religion, law, and political theory in New York, and since 2006 he has been conducting research on torture and disappearances in the North Caucasus. Barzakh is his debut film.

Director: Mantas Kvedaravicius
Screenplay: Mantas Kvedaravicius
Producers: Aki Kaurismäki, Mantas Kvedaravicius
Cinematography: Mantas Kvedaravicius
Additional cinematography: Ahmed Gisaev, Zarema Mukusheva
Sound: Tero Malmberg
Editor: Mantas Kvedaravicius
Editing consultant: Timo Linnasalo, Giedrius Zubavicius

A production of:
Sputnik Oy, Extimacy Films. With YLE TV2 Documentaries / Likka Vehkalahti; Finnish Film Foundation / Film Commissioner Miia Haavisto

Format: DCP / 16:9 / Colour
Length: 59 Min.
Language: Chechen, Russian

Click here for the »Barzakh« artwork

pressbook-Barzakh.pdf (2.1 MiB)