What makes a person come back to his/her roots? Is there any connection with the native land and ancestral memory? How crucial it is to revive and preserve ancient rituals and traditions?
“Invisible blood” — is an audiovisual documentary essay about the collective ancestral memory, which, despite the cyclical nature of the birth and extinction of ancient cultures and civilizations, global political and economic processes, remains in the blood code of subsequent generations and again and again brings a person back to his/her origins.
The project consists of a photoseries shot on my ancestral homeland, namely on the border between Northern Azerbaijan (Zaqatala/Qakh regions) and Southern Daghestan (Tsakhur region) and a feature length documentary film essay.
The documentary feature length film tells the story of a 33-years old Sofia, who is an ethnic Tsakhur, born and based in St. Petersburg. Despite being integrated in a Russian society, memories and dreams keep always bringing her back to her ancestral roots and land. Born in 1988, on the border between two epochs, two political systems, Sofia finds this dichotomy in all the aspects of her life. At home Sofia speaks Tsakhur with her parents, cooks Tsakhur food, celebrates Tsakhur holidays and practices Tsakhur rituals. At the same time, she is also part of the modern life of the Russian society.
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