talks about the hell of war in her Rotterdam Film Festival title “Achrome.” But her oneiric film, lensed by Anton Gromov, is not exactly a comment on the current situation in Europe. “This particular topic is becoming more and more timely these days, but my film is poetry,” she says.
Born in 1986, Ignatenko debuted with 2020’s “In Deep Sleep,” shown at the Berlinale’s Forum. While still keeping some of “Achrome” dream-like qualities that won over the Rotterdam programmers – with the film celebrating its world premiere in the Tiger Competition – Ignatenko will move closer to reality in her upcoming third feature, “The Animal Trials.” Currently developing the script, she is hoping to shoot in the Altai mountains. “It’s a spectacular place, beautiful and unexplored.
“The main challenge was to figure out how to talk about the past. Find that new language, which the book was trying to do as well,” says Ignatenko, who also turned to other acclaimed writers for help. “One could say that this film is divided into two parts: there is reality, which we all recognize, and then there is what we see when we fall asleep. They intertwine. That’s why I thought of Paul Celan’s poetry.
“Regarding the spirituality or the religiousness of the film, I would say it’s more related to what is happening here on Earth. We are not considering it from the point of view of someone who is ‘up there’ and above it all,” she notes, however, also pointing out that unspeakable acts of violence and spirituality sometimes go hand in hand.