Цiумихъ

Tsumikh – Avar for “At the Eagle’s”. Languages of the film are Avar and Russian

video, 59 min. 45 sec.

2023








In Tsumikh, Makhacheva brings herself and her own biography to the centre-stage. She interrogates the fraught relationship between personal and public memory by revisiting, comparing and subverting how her late grandfather, Rasul Gamzatov (1923–2003), is remembered. In the work, Makhacheva’s childhood memories meet her adult remembrances and his public memorialisation, which the film subtly reveals are at odds with one another. Gamzatov was a prominent Soviet poet celebrated within his community, by the state and internationally.

The film stages the props used in his official memorialisation (sculptural busts, archives, documents and newspapers) alongside other forms of memorialising such as private stories, into a stage set that is repeatedly constructed and deconstructed. Makhacheva is herself featured in the film, as she rehearses and prepares for the impossible task of being cast as her grandfather. Her character is presented through a series of encounters and scenarios where a polyphony of voices lay claim to Gamzatov ranging from art handlers to a van driver, a make-up artist and a choreographer, a museum director and police officers, all of whom have something to retell about the poet. Language and the politics of translation play an important part in the interactions between characters in Tsumikh. Among other questions, the film asks “who can claim memory?”.

The work is conceived as a single channel video accompanied by a footage documenting the making of the concrete rectangular sculpture that appears at the end of the film. The film is titled after the plateau in Dagestan where it was shot, called Цlумихъ, Tsumikh (Avar language — ‘At the Eagles’).

Team



Director

Co-director

Written by

Director of photography

Producers

Editing

Sound

Screenplay




Taus Makhacheva

Alexandra Pustynnova

Taus Makhacheva, Alexandra Pustynnova, Marina Chashnik

Veronika Solovyova

Marina Chashnik, Taus Makhacheva

Tanya Vetrova, Alexandra Pustynnova, Vadim Elichev

Alexandr Khokhlov, Roman Kurochkin

Taus Makhacheva, Alexandra Pustynnova, Zakir Magomedov, Natalya Leontieva, Kseniya Skorytchenko,


Production Design 

Choreographer

Costume design

Design supervision

Make up

Line producer  

Production manager

Main cast

Cast

Fyodor Krotkov, Maria Plavinskaya, Sasha Kovaleva

Anna Abalikhina

Panika Derevya

Anna Braude

Yekaterina Konovalova

Kristina Cherniavskaia

Nurmagomed Nurmagomedov

Anna Abalikhina, Aishat Patakhova, Nurmagomed Nurmagomedov, Taus Makhacheva, Abdulkhalik Abdulkhalikov, Shamil Ahmed, Shamil Khasyanzyanov, Abdullah Magomedov, Mukhtar Maksudov, Ibragim Murtazaliev, Magomed Murtazaliev,
Aida Abasova, Alibeg Abdulayev, Anna Braude, Marina Chashnik, Kristina Cherniavskaia, Rasul Goroev, Sasha Kovaleva, Fyodor Krotkov, Gaidar Magomedov, Saadula Saadulaev, Veronika Smirnova, Veronika Solovyova, Magomed Suleimanov, Anna Vetrova, 




Video stills

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