KAMCHATKA, A YEAR IN THE LAND OF THE EVENS

“It’s the middle of nowhere, but also the middle of everywhere”. This is how Daria describes the place she leaves in since more than 30 years – Tvaian –, at the core of the Kamchatka Peninsula. Alongside the French anthropologist Nastassja Martin and the American director Mike Magidson, we enter the daily life of this old Even woman and her family, evolving at the rhythm of nature.

For centuries, the Evens have nomadized throughout Siberia. But the Stalinian regime forced these former reindeer herders to sedentarism by making them work in collective farms (sovkhozes). After the fall of the USSR, Daria decided to left the city and to settle down in one of these now deserted farms, in order to revive ancestral customs. For several years, Nastassja has maintained a close relationship with this autonomous clan who believes in animism. By immersing us in the everyday of the Evens for one summer and one winter, this film invites us to renew the way we look at the world.

Filled with delicacy, this documentary proposes to observe and share the Evens daily life, punctuated by hunting, fishing but also gatherings around the fireplace for moments of rest, conversation or singing. From the harshness of winter to the luxuriance of summer, it reveals magnificent images of a wilderness where – despite the onslaughts of modernity and climate change – man lives in harmony with nature.