Otets

As part of De Balie’s Cinédialoog programme in Amsterdam, Nataliya Golofastova will present her feature film debut on 6 October. Otets is a poignant artistic portrait of Russian priest and freethinker Sergei Ovsiannikov, revealing the many layers of his life and personality — from his roots in an authoritarian homeland, through his emergence as a spiritual leader, to the difficult relationship he had with his children. At the heart of this poetic documentary lies the search for freedom, alongside the destructive legacy of dictatorship, culminating in transgenerational trauma.

Both Nataliya and the film’s protagonist, Sergei Ovsiannikov, came to the Netherlands from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s: he from Russian Leningrad, she from Ukrainian Odessa. Yet they shared the same goal — the pursuit of freedom. Still, the legacy of their dictatorial homeland proved not so easily cast off in the free West.

Following the film, a discussion will take place with Fariba Rhmaty, a trauma specialist with extensive expertise in transcultural psychiatry and systemic therapy. This conversation will focus on themes such as transcultural parenthood and the transmission of imposed legacies across generations.

About Nataliya Golofastova
Nataliya was born in Odessa and grew up on the film sets of the Odessa Film Studio, where her passion for film and theatre was first ignited. Since 1991 she has lived and worked in the Netherlands as a multimedia artist, director and actress, with a body of work ranging from theatre and performance art to her feature film debut Otets.