The 2017 Busan International Film Festival will hold a Special Program ‘Sakha Cinema: World of Magical Nature and Myth’ to spotlight the unexplored Sakha films for the first time. Special Program in Focus introduces 7 feature-length films and 5 short films to embrace around 30 year-history of the contemporary Sakha cinema from 1990s to 2017, including Mother by Alexey Romanov, a pioneering work of Sakha cinema.
The Sakha Republic (also referred as Yakutia), located in far Eastern Russia, is a republic under the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation. With thousands years of Far East tradition blended with the Russian social system, Sakha has significant socio-cultural features.
This year’s special program focuses on Sakha cinema which develops an independent film industry and has exclusive cinematic style, regardless of its short history. Sakha cinema, combines regional legends and folk religions with contemporary values and film, shows authentic charm that is rarely found in other regional films. Sakha cinema is constantly drawing attention from the international society, experiencing growth with the active production of The National Film Company ‘Sakha Film’, a rapid wave of young and independent filmmakers in art-house film scene and success in commercial films in Yakutian. After Bonfire by Dmitri Davidov premiered in 2016 Busan International Film Festival, Sakha cinema has been presented in many international film festivals including Belinale and additional broadcasts outside of Russia.
With the attempt to across boundaries of diverse genre and style and the blending of tradition, nature, changes and freshness, Sakha cinema will provide a unique experience to cinephiles visiting the 22nd Busan International Film Festival. Other additional events, where directors and critics from the region will introduce films, will also be placed as part of the special program.
Focus ‘Sakha Cinema: World of Magical Nature and Myth’
Feature-length films
Summer Homestead │ Anatoly VASILIEV
A man returns to his village to buy an abandoned house, where he lived as a child. One night, he met the phantoms of his family members in his summer homestead. After a heart attack, he finds himself between this life and eternity.
The Marvelous Time │ Nikita ARZHAKOV
A story of marvelous time – youth, eternal spring in souls, emotional tumult, problems of growing up, love, friendship, and self-affirmation. The film’s characters are rural high school students in 1960s. A screen version of a classical Yakut novel of Soviet times.
His Daughter │ Tatyana EVERSTOVA
Little Tanya lives with her grandparents in a remote village in Yakutia. Tanya thinks that the world is beautiful, and always will be so. She doesn’t want anything to change, but changes are coming in her life as the season changes.
24 Snow │ Mikhail BARYNIN
Sergey is a horse breeder, who spends the most part of the year in tundra, looking after his herd. Exhausting life in the North makes a man face one of the hardest questions: who is he? This documentary portrays a man who still leads a way of traditional lifestyle in the modern times.
While There Is Wind │ Sergey POTAPOV
An outcast hero Er Sogotokh kidnaps the daughter of a rich man. A squad of thugs led by her fiancé set out to save her. Meeting with Er Sogotokh changes the life of the beauty. Envy, betrayal, possessiveness are tightly tangled. Can love defeat death?
Keskil 2: Rematch │ Dmitry SHADRIN, Alexey EGOROV, Roman DOROFEYEV
How to get the girl that you love, how to find a job, how to settle in a new place? A comedy about adventures of a naive simpleton named Keskil and his enterprising friend Vitka, which became a hit of Yakutian box-office.
Outlaw │ Stepan BURNASHOV
Three runaway prisoners hide in the winter taiga, leaving a bloody trace behind. Are all the fugitive ruthless criminals? Who will win the fight for life and escape at the peak of winter, when the temperature outside of a secluded hunting hut falls below 50 degrees?
Short films
Mother │ Alexey ROMANOV
A tragic story of love between a lone traveler and a beautiful girl, who turns out to be a ghost. Restless soul of the dead beauty cannot find peace in this world, and the girl asks her beloved one to bury her according to customs.
Deliverance │ Gennady BAGYNANOV
Two contrasting men – a mature hunter, keeper of traditional patriarchal values, and his guest, a recently baptized young Christian – collide because of a woman. Only a duel can decide their fate. The film is based on an old legend.
Fisherman │ Vyacheslav SEMYONOV
A cinematic parable about a lonely old Balyksyt, who has lived his entire life near a big lake. He treats the lake as if it was a living creature with a soul. Once Balyksyt saves a suicide, and brings the desperate man back to confidence.
Wooden Horse │ Prokopy NOGOVITSYN
A cinematic poem with a nostalgic view on childhood: dreams, happiness, and loneliness of a rural kid.
Premonition │ Mikhail LUKACHEVSKY, Prokopy NOGOVITSYN
A Sakha tradition of a boy and his grandfather embarking on a fishing trip turns into philosophical thoughts about life and death in this cinematically stunning fragmentation of physical and mental reality.