A viewers’ favorite at a number of recent film festivals, this documentary portrays the human spirit overcoming solitude and eternal frost. The film will be introduced by the director, Mihail Barynin.
Mihail Barynin will speak in detail about production process and the evolvement of the idea of the film. After the screening, he will answer the questions.
The main character of the film is a Yakut horse breeder, spending almost his entire life away from home. In the severe winter conditions, and the absence of roads, telephone lines and electricity, Sergey Lukin does not see his family for months, while his everyday turns into a continuous fight for survival.
Coming up with the idea of the film, producer Egor Makarov chose a Moscow based director Mikhail Barynin, explaining that an outsider would bring a “fresh view”. The production process took two years, half of which the crew spent shoulder to shoulder with the protagonist, living through the full cycle of a horse breeder’s life in the far north. Many episodes had to be shot several times, since the daylight in Yakutia during the winter is extremely short.
Originally conceived as a feature about an “exotic” local tradition, the film gradually evolved into a drama of a unique man’s life. “…in the places we are talking about, only the strong and free-spirited can survive. Those who see liberty of movement where the rest would find a lack of roads, and who can accept information vacuum as a form of inward peace,” says the director.
24 Snow
Dir. Mihail Barinin, Russia, 2015
93 min.
