Artistic Differences Invites Masha Chernaya

Artistic Differences returns with an introspective and resonant conversation featuring filmmaker Masha Chernaya focusing on her daring debut feature, The Shards, which was the winner of the Doclisboa Film Festival's International Competition and the recipient of the Doc Alliance Award for Best Feature Film.  This prestigious award was just announced at this year’s Cannes Film Festival where the jury praised the film “for its unique cinematic qualities” and honored its “cinematic language that is quiet, resistant to classic narrative structures, and develops a striking ability to merge personal and collective mourning.”

Hosts Cíntia Gil and Christopher Allen unpack Chernaya’s poetic yet unsparing style, which centers on a young woman as she is saying goodbye to her homeland and follows her attempt to process a cascade of personal losses — including the death of her mother and the escape of her partner from military conscription — within the silence and surveillance of contemporary Russia. Chernaya opens up about her hybrid creative process, blending scripted scenes with documentary footage, private phone videos, and moments of raw improvisation. The conversation traces the intimate making of the film, shot over seven years on minimal resources and maximal instinct. She also speaks about the larger forces that shaped it: state repression, systemic grief, and the unstable architecture of memory.Throughout, Chernaya speaks candidly about performing her own pain for the camera. “I am not just a crying girl with grief and anger,” she says. “I’m also a big manipulator—I’m crying, but I’m calling the camera.” Together, the hosts and filmmaker examine how The Shards reclaims fragmented narratives and contested personal histories through aesthetic experimentation and performative vulnerability. Chernaya reflects on finding strength in ambivalence, wielding her own image as both shield and weapon, and embracing contradiction as a radical formal strategy.

Listen in for an atmospheric and emotionally charged exchange on image-making under pressure, resisting closure, and documenting oneself as both witness and artist.

And don’t forget! You can watch The Shards too! It’s now streaming on the UnionDocs Membership.Big thanks to our incredible team:

Editor: Alison Rodgers

Mixer: Pedro Castro 

Music: Andres Simões 

Production Support: Tara Kesavan, A.S.M Kobayashi 

This is a production of UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art. 

ARTISTIC DIFFERENCES is co-curated and co-organized by Cíntia Gil, Christopher Allen & Jenny Miller.