When film director Déni Oumar Pitsaev went to the Chechen enclave of Pankisi in northern Georgia with a plan to build a house after his mother had gifted him a piece of land in hopes of bringing her Chechnya-born and Western-Europe-socialised son back to “his people”, no one expected him to mean a treehouse—because, first, where would his (not yet existent) wife and many children live? And second, where would they hide from bombs if a house has no basement?

Imago, Pitsaevs debut full-length documentary film, won the “L’Oeil d’Or“ for Best Documentary and the “Jury Prize“ at Critics’ Week at Cannes in 2025. In Germany, it premiered at DOK Leipzig 2025 as part of the programme Panorama: Central and Eastern Europe. Polina Eremenko met with the film director to discuss his journey to Pankisi, the film’s international recognition and the societal expectations—from Pankisi to the Western film markets.

Hi Déni, thank you for this wonderful film. I find the story behind it really fascinating: your mother gifted you a piece of land that neither of you had ever been to before, so that you could return “home” to a place that was never truly your place. When exactly did this happen, and when did you decide that it would become a film?

It started in 2018, when I met my producer Alexandra Mélot at Visions du Réel in Switzerland. I was there with my short film in competition, and she came to see it. She liked it, and we started talking. She asked if I had another project, and I told her about this idea of going to Pankisi just for the summer. It was supposed to be a small, simple and humorous film, more like an immersion in the place.

Then my mother intervened—she bought the land. And my father said he would come to help me build the house. Suddenly it became much bigger and much more personal than I had imagined. It took six years before the film finally premiered.

When did you first go to Pankisi?

The first time I went was in 2019, just before COVID. I stayed only a few days, mostly to check the safety situation, because everything I had read in newspapers made it sound like a dangerous place, somewhere you shouldn’t go. I just wanted to be sure it was okay to bring the team there.

And honestly, I felt safer in Pankisi than in some suburbs of Paris. It was absolutely safe. So I spent a few days there, then COVID happened, and everything went on hold for a while. We finally resumed the project in 2024.

“In the beginning, I saw exactly what I expected, certain images that matched the clichés of the Chechen society I had in mind. But then, my perception changed. Pankisi made me realise how much we see only what we want to see at first.“

And what surprised you most during that first visit?

I arrived with a very specific idea of what the place would be like. In the beginning, I saw exactly what I expected, certain images that matched the clichés of the Chechen society I had in mind. But then, my perception changed. 

It made me realise how much we see only what we want to see at first. Once that filter disappeared, I started to experience the place differently. It felt almost like going back to my childhood: I could swim in the river, eat fruits from the trees, talk to strangers on the street. People were so welcoming. I was both a stranger and someone from there at the same time. It was a very enjoyable feeling.

I brought my co-writer and my director of photography with me, but we did not film during the first visit. It was important to me that we could meet people, share a meal, talk and build relationships outside of cinema and all the technical details. I wanted the team to feel this place so that when we came back to film, we wouldn’t feel like total strangers invading someone else’s world.

Did you have to explain a lot of context to your film crew before going to Pankisi?

Not too much verbally, but there was a lot written down. Because it was a French-Belgian co-production, we needed to prepare very detailed materials for funding applications. In France, we love writing long dossiers. The one we submitted for this project was over 140 pages! Everything was very clearly explained there.

Once we actually arrived to Pankisi, I didn’t need to explain too much. I wanted the team to have some clues to understand the place, but not all of them. I wanted to preserve my own perspective, my own eyes, but also the strangers’ eyes. That confrontation—between my view and theirs—was important.

“I’ve learned to trust reality. I believe that reality tends to reproduce itself: the same situations, the same conversations, always returning in slightly different forms.“

I find this very interesting, especially in regards to camerawork, which was done beautifully. Did your film crew understand the languages spoken in “Imago”? (Chechen and Russian)

No, they didn’t. But we shot a lot, and I would say I’ve learned to trust reality. I believe that reality tends to reproduce itself: the same situations, the same conversations, always returning in slightly different forms. So if we missed something in one moment, there was no pressure. I trusted that it would come back to us. That’s how we worked—with patience, without stress.

How easy was it to gain the trust of your protagonists? For example, there is this scene where you are at the table with the older female group, and it is full of warmth and emotion. How did this connection happen?

That was actually the second scene we shot with them. We had already filmed one scene before, and from the beginning they were really funny and open. I felt immediately comfortable with them, and I used a lot of humour, so we had a good connection right away.

When we returned the second time, the conversation went much deeper. I was surprised by how open they became. I think they weren’t used to a man asking them those kinds of questions about freedom and dreams, and maybe they hadn’t even talked about those things among themselves before. So my presence, and the presence of the camera, somehow opened that space for them.

I just started the conversation and then stepped back, letting them speak freely. It was fascinating, and very funny, too. The whole scene lasted more than an hour, and the hardest part was cutting it down later. I loved everything, honestly, that scene alone could have been a film.

There are many similarly warm scenes in “Imago”. But I was wondering if you also ever felt the opposite, like a stranger while being there?

It was both, actually—belonging and not belonging at the same time. My position was always in between two worlds. 

For the people in Pankisi, I represented someone coming from “original” Chechnya, and they dream about Chechnya as the Motherland, almost mythical. So when I arrived, coming from that “original” Chechnya, and living in Europe, but deciding to build a house in Pankisi—a place young population is departing from rather than coming to—they were fascinated. They kept asking “why”. And they started wondering—maybe there is something about this place? So they wanted to see Pankisi through my eyes. So I felt in and out all the time.

I didn’t feel like I didn’t belong—more like I’m a lighthouse in a sea, standing between the two worlds, attracting people who think they are like me or the opposite. What was magical for me was that it felt like dialogue was possible, even with people who have a completely different view of the world.

“If dialogue is possible, then there is hope. […] I tried to step into their position, and I think they also tried to see things from mine. That mutual effort felt very powerful to me.“

In this regard, I found it beautiful in your film that even when people refuse to accept you as you are, even when they try to convince or pressure you, the conversations never turn into a loud conflict. Despite the differences, people in “Imago” are still able to talk. That gives the film a real sense of hope.

Yes, absolutely, I felt hope. If dialogue is possible, then there is hope. With each person I met, it was a real conversation on a deeper human and emotional level. I felt the empathy and saw how they see things, and I could put myself in their place, see things from their perspective, what they went through, why they feel the way they feel. The construction of the society where we grow up in, or the family conditions we come from. So I tried to step into their position, and I think they also tried to see things from mine. That mutual effort felt very powerful to me.

The whole construction of the film is without any open conflict. Usually, in films, and especially documentaries, there’s a conflict, a protagonist and an antagonist. For me, it was important to give everyone complexity.

For example, my cousin—he’s a very complex person. He’s tough and stuff like that, and yet he has a room to cry. And—this is not in the film—but he writes poetry himself, and he was reciting poetry when I was there. My father was also reciting poetry in the film. So it’s more than just one thing that we show on the outside, you know. Everyone has these layers.

When we construct films nowadays, they are supposed to be very efficient, to go straight to the point. But in doing so, we simplify things and caricature people. I didn’t want that. I didn’t know how this film would end, and that uncertainty was essential. If I already knew the answers, I wouldn’t want to make the film.

You mentioned your cousin and his “room for crying”— it is so beautiful that he mentions this as a male person. There were several scenes with male protagonists being similarly vulnerable, especially the dialogue at the end with your father. I was so drawn to it because it’s so unusual to see two male people interact that way, not only in fiction or documentary, but in real life as well. It feels like these scenes challenge traditional ideas of masculinity. Was that something you intentionally wanted to explore, or did it just come naturally?

In this society, in this place, being a woman is not easy. But I cannot talk from a woman’s perspective, I can only imagine it, because I was never in that condition.

But it’s also not easy to be a man in a society where you have these given roles that you need to incarnate: being strong, physically and mentally, to survive, to provide, to sacrifice your life. So everyone is playing a role. Outside it’s like a stage, but when you go home, it’s private and you can be yourself.

My cousin’s house was not even finished, but he already needed a place where he could be more intimate and more vulnerable. For me, all these people, their bodies, are like castles built of muscles, saying “don’t approach me” or “I can beat you, I’m dangerous”. They have this look, but if you go deeper, sometimes you need only one touch for this castle to fall away—and you see a child inside, full of emotions they’re not allowed to show.

I remember as a child seeing this vulnerability of men when they were among themselves, but never showing it to women, even within their families. It stayed with me. As a child, I could move between the “men’s world” and the “women’s world” because I didn’t yet have those roles—and so I could be in both places. But when you grow up, you can only belong to one of them, and that’s it.

When I went back to Pankisi, I felt like a child again—all these rules didn’t apply to me because I was coming from the outside. I could be very intimate with women, and sometimes they forgot that I was there as a man. And I could also be vulnerable with the men. I could be in both worlds.

And in this world with its social laws, there are also social expectations that often come across as if they were one’s own dreams and desires. I think that’s what makes your film about a Chechen enclave in Georgia so relatable internationally—regardless of physical location, everyone is familiar with these societal pressures in one way or another. At what point did this topic become relevant for you?

It’s a question I’ve been carrying around with me since childhood. I was born and grew up in Chechnya, and I was always fascinated by birds and by their migration. I lived in a village surrounded by fields, and the birds would stop there to rest on their way from the north to the south. I was fascinated by how they go so far away to find food for the winter, and then, when they’re in this warmer place where everything is good, they give birth to new birds that must grow strong enough to fly back to a place where they’ve never been to.

I always wondered—why do the baby birds fly back? Why go to a place that isn’t theirs? Why reproduce this mechanism of returning, of thinking you must go back with your parents, or otherwise you won’t survive? Why not just stay where it’s comfortable?

When I asked my grandmother, she said, “Oh, you ask too many questions”.

“I think I refused to follow the rules from a young age. Later, I learned to pretend to be grown up, but I never killed the child inside. […] I’m not refusing reality; I see its complexity. But I refuse to be marked by it.“ 

Later, when I had to learn to do the Islamic prayer in Arabic language, I asked: why can’t God understand me when I speak in my own language? If I have sinful thoughts, He understands those, but not my prayer in my own tongue?

It’s about questioning the norms that people don’t question, the ones they just reproduce. We are most ourselves when we’re children—we ask questions, we dream, we look at the sky and want to understand. But from a young age, we’re taught to stop asking questions and follow the rules.

I think I refused to follow the rules from a young age. Later, I learned to pretend to be grown up, but I never killed the child inside. It stays with me even today. It’s not naive; it’s honest. I’m not refusing reality; I see its complexity. But I refuse to be marked by it.

“Honest” is a fitting word to describe your presence in “Imago”. I was wondering how this worked for you—being in front of the camera while also being the director. How much of the real you do we see in the film?

It wasn’t easy to be both director and main character. But I was able to direct from inside the scene by guiding the camera through my movements or by starting conversations I wanted to explore, and then just let things happen. Later on, the second time you direct is in the editing room. There, I was directing even more than on set.

Sometimes I forgot that I was the director: like in one scene with my mom, when I actually fell asleep, for real, and the team kept filming for two hours. They didn’t know if I was pretending! It took them time to realise they could stop filming. Sometimes I was more aware of the camera; other times I was just a character.

That’s part of the vulnerability, and it’s painful, actually. Especially because every morning, we watched the footage from the previous day to keep track of what had happened. You have to accept yourself on screen—your voice, your face, your defects. It’s difficult. But then I learned to see it as a character. That allowed everyone to talk openly about scenes, to criticise the character without me taking it personally. Otherwise, it would have been too personal—my family, myself, all on screen. But at the same time, it’s still me, and I’m not acting. I’m just living in the present moment.

What about the patience you have on screen? With all the talk about marriage and children, I was really amazed by how calm and composed you stayed. Did you expect this topic to be that intense?

In reality, it was even more intense, and yes, I did expect it, but expecting is one thing, and living it is another. I learned how to react, to use humour and let it pass. In life, I can be harder, too, but I’ve learned that there’s no point in being more brutal or trying to change things by force. It’s better to accept things as they are and not lose energy. 

Sometimes people say things mechanically—not because they truly believe them, but because that’s how they act every day. So I take things as they are and hope that maybe, later, we can go deeper in the discussion. 

But it’s not really patience. It’s resilience. Once you find peace inside yourself, and you don’t need to prove anything to anyone, nothing can get through you. It becomes bulletproof—whatever they say just reflects back. In my film, I tried to be present—zero judgment. I’m not there to decide who is right or wrong. Just to be there, to accept, not to try to change anyone.

It’s something I’m trying to apply in daily life, too: for example, with what’s happening in Gaza and Israel. When I see my Instagram filled with people being “pro this” or “pro that”, I feel overwhelmed. There’s so much anger, so much injustice, and you can’t do anything. So I tell myself: breathe, don’t read, don’t react. I’m learning not to react, and that’s actually more powerful.

The intimate dialogue with your father about your own personal traumatic experiences during the war in Chechnya is a crucial moment in “Imago”. Why did you choose to address this topic through him?

My father’s presence was the most important for me—he was the only one I could ask those questions to. I was uncertain about how he would react, but I thought: even if he gives me no answer, that silence can be just as powerful. It was a physical experience for me—being there, facing him—and it turned out to be much more emotional than I expected.

Did you want Europe to know more or understand Chechnya better through this project?

No, that wasn’t the aim. I didn’t want to make what is called an export film—you know, a film made for a specific audience abroad. But I feel that more and more we’re being pushed in that direction. There’s this expectation of a kind of folkloric film, where one place or culture is presented in a very specific way, almost through a still-colonial lens.

The strange thing is that this perspective isn’t always imposed by Europeans anymore; it’s often reproduced by people from within those communities themselves. Even in these pitching markets and film development programmes, many stories come “from the inside”, but they’re told using tools and narrative frameworks aimed at a Western audience.

It’s like going to a film festival to watch films about how miserable the rest of the world is to feel comfortable about your own life, or to feel like you’re “giving a voice to the voiceless”. But to me, that just reproduces the same colonial point of view, only now through the eyes of insiders.

For me, that’s completely wrong. I didn’t want to “change the point of view” or make a film that fits into that mechanism. I wanted to show that these people, this story, could be anywhere—even in the south of France. It’s a family story. It’s not an ethnographic film. I didn’t want to lecture or address big geopolitical issues directly.

“What happened in Chechnya—that was the beginning of Putin’s rise to power. And what he’s doing now in Ukraine isn’t new. It’s the same man, the same system, the same methods, just on a different scale. It’s still ethnic cleansing, still crimes against humanity, just happening somewhere else. […] But he’s been doing this for 25 years. The world just keeps turning, and by doing nothing for Ukraine now, we’re setting the stage for the next tragedy.“

But still, I keep asking myself—why do we study history, in school or university, if we don’t actually learn from it? What happened in Chechnya—that was the beginning of Putin’s rise to power. And what he’s doing now in Ukraine isn’t new. It’s the same man, the same system, the same methods, just on a different scale. It’s still ethnic cleansing, still crimes against humanity, just happening somewhere else.

People act surprised now, saying, “Oh my God, who is this Mr. Putin?” But he didn’t reveal himself only by invading Ukraine in full scale. Before that, there was 2008, when Russia invaded Georgia and took 30 percent of its territory. Then they bombed Aleppo in Syria, helping Bashar al-Assad, who later fled to Russia. None of this is new. It’s just that we didn’t want to see it.

And when it finally gets closer to us, suddenly we’re shocked. But he’s been doing this for 25 years. The world just keeps turning, and by doing nothing for Ukraine now, we’re setting the stage for the next tragedy. Later we’ll again say, “How could that happen?”. But it’s because we let it happen.

“I used to think that with everything we know, with all the tools we have, it would be impossible to have a genocide today. But history shows us something else: when things happen, we do nothing. And when it’s over, we like to commemorate, to say “never again” and maybe fund some films about it.“

We live in a global world, but we forget how connected everything is. What’s happening now in South Sudan might feel distant, but its echoes will reach us, too. The same goes for Gaza. I used to think that with everything we know, with all the tools we have, it would be impossible to have a genocide today. But history shows us something else: when things happen, we do nothing. And when it’s over, we like to commemorate, to say “never again” and maybe fund some films about it.

I’m always surprised how someone can feel deeply for one tragedy, like in Ukraine, but not for another, like in Gaza. Or someone can feel pain for what happened in Chechnya, but not see what is happening in Ukraine. How do you construct your moral compass like that?

Still, I have some hope—and the film carries that hope as well.

What reactions to “Imago” have you received so far? And how did winning the L’Oeil d’or for the top documentary and the jury prize at Critics Week in Cannes feel like?

It was nice, but back in the moment I didn’t really realise it. Being at Cannes was like… wow. We were complete outsiders: for my producer, it was her first time producing a film. So we were outside the industry system. For a small documentary film like this, I never thought we could be in competition. But it was nice to give visibility to the film, so people can go see it in cinemas in France.

The film is also going to be released in cinemas in Switzerland soon, which is good because people can watch it on the big screen. All these logos at the end help with distribution and visibility. In Germany, I don’t think we will have distribution for now. But the film will be on TV, on ZDF, so it will still reach a lot of people. That’s good.

The film had a very good life in Asia: we premiered at the Shanghai Film Festival, and were at Busan in South Korea, which is the biggest film festival in all of Asia. Every screening was sold out. After the screenings, people were asking so many questions, saying things like “This is such a Chinese film”. I was like: “Oh, they felt so connected”.

“The most beautiful thing they told me was that at some moment, while watching, it felt like the film was watching them back. They were seeing someone else’s story, but it reflected their own lives. If even the public in China and South Korea feels that connection, it’s bigger than I imagined. That’s the power of cinema.“

In Shanghai, especially, people live in big cities but come from smaller provinces. The family expressions, the pressure to marry, to build a house—they could relate to that social construction, it felt so close to them. And in South Korea, too: to have a career, work, build a family, have a child—the social pressure is very real. People don’t have time to question what they really want, their own dreams. They said it was a feel-good film, despite its background topic of Chechnya, and that they could reflect on their own lives.

The most beautiful thing they told me was that at some moment, while watching, it felt like the film was watching them back. They were seeing someone else’s story, but it reflected their own lives. If even the public in China and South Korea feels that connection, it’s bigger than I imagined. That’s the power of cinema.

It’s strange too, because during Q&As, I feel naked—people think they know me just from the film. I show so much, and sometimes I think, “Did I go too far?” But then I feel this love from the audience, and it’s bigger than any prize at Cannes. Watching the film on the big screen with people is magical, and is something only cinema can bring.

Your house-building plan in Pankisi remains under question in “Imago”, but even if it is not going to be on that piece of land that your mother gifted you: Where will you build your treehouse?

I am open to the world, but I’ve had such a nomadic life, and I want to belong somewhere. I don’t know yet where the house will be. But I know that I don’t want to be alone in it. If I find the right person to share it with, the physical location doesn’t matter.

What is your next project going to be about?

It’s a feature film, a French-Austrian-Spanish-Belgian co-production, and will be shot on Gran Canaria. It’s about male escort persons from Eastern Europe. It’s a very pure, honest and beautiful story about vulnerability and love. Not the stereotypical idea of escorts, that’s just a pretext to talk about something else.

It’s a hybrid film, between real life and fiction. The protagonist is based on a real person, but I adapted the story to make it more powerful emotionally. Sometimes you need the tools of fiction to convey feelings, so the protagonist feels safe. It’s a philosophical question about the human condition and love. It’s about the same question my father asked me in “Imago”: “For whom are you living?” In this next film, I’m exploring that: Do we live for someone else, or for ourselves? It’s less funny, more emotional, more melancholic.

That sounds very interesting. Good luck with your next film, and thank you so much for this interview.

Thank you.

Imago, directed by Déni Oumar Pitsaev, France/Belgium, 2025, 109 min. Languages: Chechen, Russian, Georgian.

Source of all the images/film stills shown in this text:

https://www.semainedelacritique.com/en/edition/2025/movie/imago-