Roman Cherpak

He lost himself at war and then he awakened in Venice. He was a sniper and he became a photographer because the rifle’s telescopic sight is very similar to the camera’s viewfinder. Roman Cherpak left his home in Ukraine at the age of 14, he has grown up in Israel and now he raises his two sons in Italy and in Moscow and manages his gallery in Venice’s downtown.

Deeply personal cinematic journey between two worlds—Catholic Venice and Islamic Dagestan. Inspired by Joseph Brodsky’s essay *Watermark* and Merab Mamardashvili’s lectures on those “doomed to run,” I craft a film-essay about identity, the ache of existing between cultures, and the endless search for home. Through fragments of daily life and raw, intimate phone calls with my mother, I try to make sense of living on the border—between faiths, eras, wars, and pandemics.