Imago | WATCH DOCS

A double winner at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Deni Oumar Pitaev’s “Imago” tells a story of otherness, but above all, of the timeless conflict between the individual and the community. The director, who has lived in Belgium for years, returns to a Chechen diaspora settled in a picturesque mountain valley in Georgia, seeking his place within it. He is different, awkward with weapons and at odds with the image of the Caucasian macho. Even the house he plans to build defies local norms. In this conservative, ultra-traditional world, he dares to speak of dreams. His rejection of appearances seems destined to fail, yet it yields surprising results. Cracks form in the seemingly solid facade of a traditional family; long-suppressed desires and secrets come to light. Social roles reveal themselves as ill-fitting masks. In this place, rendered surreal by stunning cinematography, nothing is truly what it seems.

Konrad Wirkowski