Imago 2025 déni oumar pitsaev
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Imago is Oumar Pitsaev's debut feature film. This personal and poetic documentary premiered in the 2025 Cannes Critic's Week, picking up the French Touch Jury Prize and the L'Œil d'or (Golden Eye), the overall documentary prize in all categories. It is the first Chechen feature film to be selected in the Cannes Film Festival.
Imago at Ciné Lumière Q&A with Déni Oumar Pitsaev in conversation with filmmaker Nana Ekvtimishvili
Imago | 108mins | GEO/FRA/BEL | Chechen, Russian and Georgian with EN
6 October UK Premiere
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Oumar Pitsaev was Born in Chechnya in 1986. He lived in Almaty (Kazakhstan) and St Petersburg, before he came to Paris aged 17. He first studied at Sciences Po in Paris, and then turned to film directing obtaining a degree at INSAS (National Institute of Performing Arts) in Brussels and a master's at St. Lukas University, Brussels.
The Pankisi Valley, located in Georgia near the Chechen border, has been inhabited by the Kist people (ethnically related to the Chechens) for centuries, who developed their own identity blending Chechen traditions with Georgian culture. The Valley recently became a refuge for Chechens fleeing the Chechen wars.
When Déni's mother gifts him a small patch of land in the wild, beautiful Pankisi Valley, a part of Georgia next to Chechnya, he sees a chance to finally build the house in the trees that he's dreamed of since he was a boy. But nothing in the rugged Caucasus is ever simple. Unable to ever return to Chechnya where he was born, Déni's visit to this village just across the Chechen border - a place he barely knows – stirs up old feuds and buried family dramas. He grapples with the weight of his personal history, including his family's displacement and the traumas of war, while also confronting the expectations and confinements of his community.
