Many thousand kilometers from Moscow, isolated within the vastness of Russia, lies Kolyma, an inhospitable region that was home to the gulags. Accompanied by Lena, a young interpreter from St. Petersburg, painter André Sugnaux follows a 2000-km route built by former prisoners who worked in the gold mines. The journey follows the painful memories of a country seen through the eyes of a handful of witnesses.

Picture gallery

No one will be surprised to learn that Russia maintained deadly work camps where 18 million people where sent, people deemed hostile to the government. It is estimated that 4.5 million were killed there and yet today’s authorities have refused to support a museum project, while survivors are still haunted by shame. This is the focus of La Trace, a documentary co-directed by Gabriel Tejedor and Enrico Pizzolato. The horrors of the time are reflected in the rusting hulks of the metal mining machines, which still dig up the earth – sometimes revealing the anonymous bones of the lost. The morbid silence that accompanies such unforgettable images alternate with testimony by former prisoners or guards of the gulags, as well as those who chose to live in the region. It is a shame that the painful melody of this very controlled film is spoiled by Sugnaux’s awkward commentary (“We are following the road, but are we really moving forward?”).