The film unfolds across two timelines: the Soviet 1960s and present-day Guinea. In 1960, Guinean student Costades Diagne arrives in Moscow to study filmmaking. A dancer and intellectual, he becomes a charismatic figure of Soviet internationalism, introducing African culture while sharing Western cinema and music. Yet racism and political repression undermine this utopia. After his award-winning diploma film in 1966, Costades disappears.
In present-day Guinea, his daughter Eva Diagne searches for the truth about her father, arrested in 1971 and imprisoned in Camp Boiro. Through memory, archives, and imagined dialogue, the film explores erasure, exile, and cinema’s power to preserve forgotten live.

Archives: Costa, Me & An Endless Film,is based on a wide range of archival materials. These include student films from VGIK, where Costades appeared as an actor, as well as two films he directed himself: People of the Dance and Woman (La Femme). The project also draws on Soviet-era Belarusian films, in which Costades played vivid supporting roles, and on works by Aleksei Speshnev, including A Thousand Windows, where he appears as a foreign student at Lomonosov Moscow State University in the 1960s.
Additional context is provided by Black Sun, a film about Patrice Lumumba, produced at Belarusfilm. A key element is the documentary Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, discovered in Gosfilmofond, with rights held by ONACIG in Conakry. The film also incorporates excerpts from Soviet productions shot in Guinea in the 1960s. Further research will involve French archives focusing on Guinea in the 1940s–50s, as well as the Krasnogorsk archive, which preserves footage from Moscow festivals where Costades interacted with international figures. Materials from the Riga Film Studio archive will also be used, reflecting his ties to Latvian filmmakers.

Alexander Markov

Alexander Markov is a director and producer. He explores historical, political, and social issues with a rigorous and sensitive cinematic approach. With a PhD in anthropology from the University of Lisbon, he has received several prestigious scholarships (Open World, DAAD, Fulbright, Institut Français). His films, including Hydroelectric Joy (2024, ARTE), Red Africa (2022, Portugal Film Institute & RTP), and Our Africa (2018), have been selected and awarded at numerous festivals (Berlinale Talents, Visions du Réel, MoMA Fortnight, L’etoile de La Scam 2025, Sheffield DocFest, IndieLisboa, IFF Artdocfest, Archive Aperto, etc.). His work, combining archives, visual experimentation, and bold storytelling, has been broadcast internationally, notably on ARTE. 

Vladislav Ketkovich

Vladislav Ketkovich has been a producer since 2005. Trained in European production through EuroDoc, Ex-Oriente, Documentary Campus Masterschool, and EAVE, he has produced or co-produced more than 30 films with various European countries, which have been screened and won awards at numerous festivals (IDFA, CPH:DOX, HotDocs, Zurich, El Gouna, Krakow, DokLeipzig, DocAviv, Shanghai, etc.). His films have been broadcast on ARTE, ZDF, WDR, BBC, MDR, ORF, YLE, SVT, VPRO, Czech TV, The Guardian, among others. In Russia, he was one of the few independent producers to cover protest topics. He left the country shortly after the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and moved to France with his family in March 2022, where he was granted political asylum. He has contributed to several Russian projects within the production company Little Big Story.