Take a walk down Putin Prospect, Grozny’s main street, look carefully at long limbed Muslim women filing out of beauty salons, men riding brand new SUV, and you would never believe that this place was leveled by Russian aerial and artillery assaults less than a decade ago. Pause. Wait to celebrate peace: inside, behind the pale pink walls, hate and despair still perform their sad dance. Chechnya's wounds stay open like the deep puddles reflecting high sky outside the enormous central mosque. No fancy bars, no propaganda posters portraying Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, on every other building, can hide Grozny’s loneliness. Layer by layer, the Grozny, Nine Cities documentary project peels the veil off for you to uncover what is really going on in the complex life of the Chechen capital. The project’s nine themes (or nine cities) penetrate the unstoppable efforts that Chechens undertake in search of their own way to happiness.
Anna Nemtsova