Fata Morgana

A wide scope of documentary imagery and animation mixed masterfully by seasoned film-makers Lapsui and Lehmuskallio provide a sharp look into the recent history of the Chukchi people, their colonisation and modern-day survival. The plot is threaded by Kymyrultyne’s tale of a Chukchi woman who now lives in a post-communist pre-fabricated city and teaches her native language to displaced Chukchi fellows. She is very familiar with her people’s history and mythology and vividly narrates it from her unique female perspective. In the grey city, the ghastly presence of a lost way of life has taken its toll on Kymyrultyne, despite her idealism. The cruelty of the colonizers towards the region and its Indigenous inhabitants is narrated objectively and without judgement, yet with great emotion. In this post-modern experiment in film-making, the masterful Nenet director uses irony accentuated by a contemporary soundtrack to match the vast story-telling richness of her Arctic culture. (Berlinale)