Цiумихъ (Tsumikh – Avar for “At the Eagle’s”), 2023

Video, 59min.45sec. Languages of the film are Avar and Russian

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 (b.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’).

Director: Taus Makhacheva
Co-director: Alexandra Pustynnova
Written by: Taus Makhacheva, Alexandra Pustynnova, Marina Chashnik
Director of photography: Veronika Solovyova
Producers: Marina Chashnik, Taus Makhacheva
Editing: Tanya Vetrova, Alexandra Pustynnova, Vadim Elichev
Sound: Alexandr Khokhlov, Roman Kurochkin
Screenplay: Taus Makhacheva, Alexandra Pustynnova, Zakir Magomedov, Natalya Leontieva, Kseniya Skorytchenko
Production Design: Fyodor Krotkov, Maria Plavinskaya, Sasha Kovaleva
Choreographer: Anna Abalikhina
Costume design: Panika Derevya
Design supervision: Anna Braude
Make up: Yekaterina Konovalova

Line producer: Kristina Cherniavskaia
Production manager: Nurmagomed Nurmagomedov

Main cast: Anna Abalikhina, Aishat Patakhova, Nurmagomed Nurmagomedov, Taus Makhacheva, Abdulkhalik Abdulkhalikov, Shamil Ahmed, Shamil Khasyanzyanov, Abdullah Magomedov, Mukhtar Maksudov, Ibragim Murtazaliev, Magomed Murtazaliev

Cast: 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

Site under construction. Contact: info@tausmakhacheva.com