Daria Kashcheeva is an independent filmmaker based in Prague, Czechia, and a graduate of FAMU. Her bachelor film Daughter (2019) introduced handheld camera movement into puppet animation. The film premiered at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, where it won the Best Student Film award. It went on to receive over 100 awards, including the Student Academy Award, the Sundance Jury Award for Animation, and an Oscar nomination. In her master’s film Electra (2023), which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and won Best Short Film at the Toronto International Film Festival, Daria combines live action and animation techniques. Working with actors and life-sized puppets, exploring themes of domestic violence, sexuality, and body perception, she pushes the boundaries of the animated film genre.
PROJECT
Nameless
In the near future, birth rates have fallen to an extreme low and countries respond differently. Eva, shaped by her country’s propaganda promoting an idealized image of motherhood, decides to have a child. But after giving birth she feels emptiness and a growing sense that something’s deeply wrong with her. She hides it until the pressure breaks her. In a moment of extreme exhaustion, she becomes convinced she’s drowned her daughter in the bathtub and flees across the border. She builds a new identity and tries to bury the past. But circumstances force her to care for another woman’s child, Ajka. In this space free from expectation, Eva gradually discovers she is capable of love after all. Then she learns her daughter is alive. What she remembers as drowning her was a distortion born of unbearable guilt. Eva must choose between the daughter she feels bound to care for and the love that grew freely between her and Ajka. She chooses Ajka—a bond born not of obligation, but of presence.
