With ‘Birth of a Nation’ filmmaker and photographer Daya Cahen provides a unique insight into the contemporary Russian world, in which young girls between 11 and 17 years of age are taught how to be the ideal Russian patriot as well as the ideal woman at Cadet School nr. 9. They learn how to cook, iron, but also how to march and use weapons. With the film Cahen shows how heroism and patriottism is propagandized by Vladimir Putin, and how this can affect the country’s future. Birth of a Nation displays the contraposition of militaristic indoctrination and childlike innocence.

The film, as well as an accompanying series of photographs by Cahen, is exhibited by Fotodok at the Flatland Gallery in Utrecht from June 8 to July 8.