"For this intimate project, he dusted off his parents' long-buried VHS recordings, most of them shot before he was born, after the fall of the Iron Curtain. The footage depicts the pair as their homeland was experiencing a fragile new sense of hope, and follows them on their travels while working for the World Bank, documenting journeys to countries including Vietnam, India and Cuba."
"As Rykov expresses in drifting, lyrical narration, this experience teemed with contradictions - between freedom and poverty, and between emerging globalism and indelible heritage - that grew more complex with each border crossed. Releasing the film amid the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war, Rykov brings a circularity to the work, once again placing the audience in a precarious moment that gestures towards a deeply uncertain future."
Hindsight stitches together parents' long-buried VHS recordings shot in the aftermath of the Iron Curtain's fall, many from before the filmmaker's birth. The footage follows the couple as they travel while working for the World Bank, visiting countries such as Vietnam, India and Cuba. The film's drifting, lyrical narration frames an experience filled with contradictions between freedom and poverty and between emerging globalism and indelible heritage. Each cross-border encounter compounds those tensions. Released during the Russo-Ukrainian war, the film creates circularity by situating viewers in a precarious present that gestures toward a deeply uncertain future.
Read at Aeon
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