Ordered to Forget 2014

One of the film’s protagonists, Daud, is out hunting when NKVD officers arrest his father. Daud’s mother explains the reason for the arrest: Seda—Daud’s girlfriend—has rejected the advances of Kasim, the commander of the NKVD unit stationed in the village. Daud seeks advice from Mullah Arsamak, who lives in a neighboring village. The mullah expresses sympathy and urges Daud not to let despair or hatred take root in his heart. While Daud is visiting Arsamak, his mother passes away.

The village council chairman demands that Raykhan, a local administration employee, sign a denunciation against several villagers. Raykhan refuses and leaves the administration building. As she exits, she encounters NKVD officers leading a detainee—a fellow villager—who confesses to her that he has signed a denunciation. Some time later, Raykhan returns to the administration building. The chairman is pleased, assuming she intends to sign the document, but instead, she hands over the official seals in her possession and leaves. She is subsequently arrested.

Inside the administration building, Kasim is having lunch with his deputy. Daud ties up the two soldiers guarding the building, bursts into the room brandishing a weapon, disarms Kasim and his deputy, and steals their horses, which he then turns over to the war effort. Enraged, Kasim storms into Seda’s home and tries to force her to reveal Daud’s whereabouts. Seda refuses, and Kasim attempts to drag her away by force. Her father opens fire, and in the ensuing confusion, Seda escapes into the forest.

Daud finds her in the forest. After receiving their families’ blessing, they marry and begin living in the woods. An NKVD unit arrives in the mountains to capture Daud, but the couple manages to evade them. In the mountains, Daud encounters abreks (outlaws/insurgents) and joins them.

Due to the lack of passable roads, it proves impossible to deport the population of Khaibakh—along with residents of neighboring villages who had been rounded up there—on schedule. They are locked inside a collective farm stable. To meet the deportation deadline, the colonel commanding the operation (modeled after Commissar of State Security 3rd Rank Mikhail Gvishiani) orders the stable set on fire. Dziyaudin Malsagov, the Deputy People’s Commissar of Justice for Chechen-Ingushetia, and an officer who supported him, are arrested for attempting to intervene. The senior lieutenant ordered to set the fire shoots himself. NKVD soldiers gun down the people fleeing the flames. Daud and Seda witness the events but are powerless to stop them.