Valera

The story

An experimental short assembled from YouTube videos of the director’s former classmate, TV fragments, and a 2006 graduation interview recorded in Alchevsk. What starts as an ironic play with early-2000s home-video aesthetics slowly falls apart. Through montage of personal and online material, Chepelev tries to reconnect with a man he once loved – a man whom war and time have made almost unrecognisable. Laughter loses its protective function and gives way to the impossible wish to return to a place that no longer exists.

• #experimental documentary
• #alchevsk, ukraine
• #video essay
• #ukraine
• #archive footage
• #loss
• #donbas
• #experimental
• #war
• #nostalgia
• #memory
• #home video