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64th Critics' Week: Ava Cahen Presented Déni Oumar Pitsaev's IMAGO at the 23rd FICM

Brian V. Soto

As part of the partnership between the 23rd Morelia International Film Festival (FICM) and Critics’ Week at the Cannes Film Festival, Imago (2025) by director Déni Oumar Pitsaev was presented by Ava Cahen, Artistic Director of this section.

“It is an atypical Chechen documentary in which director Déni Oumar Pitsaev chronicles his return to his homeland and his somewhat bizarre reunion with his family,” said Ava Cahen at the beginning of her presentation.

"The film is called Imago, and the symbolism of the title is eloquent; in biology, imago refers to the adult form of an insect in metamorphosis, and in psychoanalysis, to the unconscious representation of our parental figures. Imago combines identity, introspection, and untold family secrets, while the traumas of past Russian-Chechen conflicts resurface," she said.

Déni Oumar Pitsaev is given a plot of land in Pankisi, Georgia, a valley at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains, right on the border with Chechnya, where he was born. In exile, he hopes to build a house in this place where descendants of his Chechen clan live. But how could he live in such a place?

In the credits for the editing, we find none other than Laurent Sénéchal, who was responsible for Anatomy of a Fall (2023, dir. Justine Triet) and The Ghost Network (2024, dir. Jonathan Millet). “I bring this up because the editing and montage of this documentary make it even more extraordinary ,” he said.

Imago won the French Touch prize from the jury at the 64th Critics' Week at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as the Golden Eye at the Cannes Film Festival. “Let's just say it's like the Golden Camera for documentaries,” Ava Cahen explained before the screening.