Leaving Ground Zero

After a decade of battling to reclaim his voice, Sasha moved to Bozeman, Montana in 2008 to study film production at Montana State University. For the first time in more than fourteen years, he could experience life without abuse being the primary focus of his existence. Outside of classes he fly fished blue-ribbon trout streams, hiked countless peaks, and began to explore what brought him joy in life. He started to see that despite his tumultuous childhood, he still had an entire lifetime waiting to be lived.

But there was still more work to be done.

In many facets of his life, Sasha was thriving. He was a straight-A student, physically fit, and enjoying a healthy social life. Despite his best efforts to truly move forward, there were lingering symptoms from his childhood trauma that continued to tug at him, and there was still a voice within Sasha that worked to pull him from the present moment, into a place of self-doubt, fear, and insecurity. He realized that this tug-of-war that was happening inside of him was an indication of lingering, unhealed wounds and unanswered questions from his childhood. He knew that in order to truly move forward with his life, he’d have to revisit his past, search for the source of his cognitive disconnect, and confront his demons head on.

Revisiting the past

Shortly after graduating college in 2013, Sasha asked his dad to send him all of the home videos that had been filmed during his childhood. In watching the 200 hours of home videos:

As Sasha watched himself as a child, in proximity to his abusers, he saw his own innocence and helplessness with newfound clarity. Re-watching his childhood provided Sasha some validation, a reminder that he had nothing to do with what his abusers chose to do to him—but that he had everything to do with the strength and resilience it required to hold his abusers accountable.

Watching the footage answered many of his questions while sparking a whole list of new ones. In response to his experience, Sasha decided to direct REWIND, an autobiographical documentary following his journey to confront, unpack and understand the multi-generational child sexual abuse that haunted him and his family. REWIND had its world premiere at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festval.