The Scar of the Earth

Macha Ovtchinnikova, author of the film, follows the tracks of her great-great-aunt in Kyiv while her mother tells the story of the aunt’s death, revealing a dramatic episode of the Holocaust: “In my great-great-mother’s home, a little black-and-white picture represented deserted hill covered with dry grass. A little black cross traced on the photograph indicated the approximate place where her sister Esfir was buried with her family. Before the war, Esfir had a happy family, a husband, and three children. They lived in a Jewish neighborhood of Kyiv, close to the Babi Yar ravine.