Exclusive: Rediance has acquired Chechen director Déni Oumar Pitsaev’s hybrid documentary Imago, ahead of its world premiere at Cannes’ Critics’ Week, further enhancing the international slate of the China-based sales agent.

Filmed in Georgia last summer, it marks the first-ever feature-length Chechen film, shedding light on a community that has almost never been represented in cinema.

Chechnya-born Pitsaev also grew up in Kazakhstan and Russia before arriving in Paris as a refugee aged 17. He is now one of very few Chechen filmmakers.

The project came about when he inherited land in Pankisi, Georgia, a valley at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains.