Session IV: Lost Spaces

Moderated by Miri Rizvi & Hannah Eileen Grobet

What happens when home, people and landscapes are no longer within reach? Through personal and courageous examinations of loss, these films explore what it means to navigate spaces that have changed or vanished – whether through forced movement, colonialism, war or environmental disasters. Can one re-enter them through memories, digital realms, melodies or artistic creation? Each film approaches the topic of loss in a unique way and shows how loss shapes identity and evokes the need to make sense of one’s altered history.

I Love You More (17 min)

Netherlands, 2023, Arabic / English sub.
Directed by Nour Alkheder

This film gives insights into Nour’s journey to recognizing her longing for her father and Syria, where she confronts loss and the emotional impact of absence. Her film I Love You More is about tangible nostalgia. Her authentic work explores deep human emotions and shows people at their most honest. She approaches subjects intimately and emotionally, by balancing documentary reality with fiction.

Nour Alkheder graduated from the Netherlands Film Academy in 2024.

Content warning: war.

Songs of Duolan (20 min)

Georgia, 2024, Russian, Yakut / English sub.
Directed by Sakhamin Trofimov

When military mobilization began in Russia, Duolan left Yakutia for Georgia. He turned his apartment into a small kitchen to make a living selling sushi. In Batumi, where little reminds him of home, Duolan searches for something that might bring back the feeling of his homeland – in the local landscapes, people, signs, and even animals. Sometimes, he plays Yakut songs and sings along, hoping to at least mentally transport himself back to the place he left behind.

Sakhamin Trofimov is a documentary filmmaker and producer from Yakutia (Republic of Sakha, Russia). In 2020, he graduated from the Docdocdoc School of Documentary Photography in St. Petersburg. In 2024, he graduated from the Un/Filmed Documentary School in the USA.

Content warning: dead animals, animals’ blood.

The Memory of Glitch (28 min)

United States, 2023, English / English sub.
Directed by Suzanne Elizabeth Schaaf 

The Memory of Glitch explores the entanglements of smoke and pixels, trees and humans, loss and recovery. When the filmmaker dives into a burnt forest in Oregon, US, memory and place begin to unravel. Her voice shares personal reflections on loss while glimpses of bare soil, rock formations and mountains form new horizons. A montage of found footage, Google Maps explorations, and material recorded during fieldwork form a new narrative. In the film the researcher applies forensics of memory and image. She plays with the idea of fiction and reality, and questions our relationship with the on- and offline environments we inhabit.

‘With a final immersion in the virtual world, Schaaf challenges the audience to engage with the construction of space and memory. What do we consider worth remembering? When is a memory captured? Is a memory a place that we can create and want to return to again and again? The autobiographical dimension of the film, shaped by Schaaf’s reflections on the death of her mother, connects her individual experience with the collective loss of our environment’ – Maria Hansen.

Suzanne Elizabeth Schaaf grew up in the Netherlands and has family in the US. Sheholds a Bachelor’s in Theatre Directing and Teaching from Amsterdam University of the Arts, and a Master’s degree in Visual Anthropology from UvA.

Content warning: climate crisis, exploitation of nature, death/loss.