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RUS


Beyond the White (18+)

Germany, 2022, colour, 90 min.
Director: Evgeny Kalachikhin
Three villages combined in one timeless space – somewhere beyond the polar circle. On the Kola peninsula in Northern Russia, a few dozen people still live in their traditional timber houses surrounded by water, forests and sand. Nature provides for them, mainly the White sea, but fish populations have been dwindling over the years. Fewer and fewer people want to stay; many move to the city, leaving behind their homes. Over time these houses turn into spectres from the past, ownerless and lonely ruins that only spring back to life by playing grandchildren, visiting their grandparents over the summer. The hamlets Tetrino, Chavanga and Kuzomen seem to head toward the fate of so many other villages all over Russia: a slow but inevitable extinction. Cut off from vital infrastructure, almost forgotten by regional governance, these people have to keep together to cope with their everyday struggle. And when a mass fire breaks out, threatening to ravage the entire peninsula, they have to fight their last stand.

Evgeny Kalachikhin

Evgeny Kalachikhin

studied editing at the German Film University Babelsberg as well as direction at the Russian State University of Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow before becoming a director. At the White Back of Beyond is his 1st short documentary film he directed after graduating from university. However, the films he has graded or edited, were awarded in recent years by many international film festivals.

FILMOGRAPHY

USSR: Collapse. Documentary series. Episode 5, 2011; Boris Yeltsin: Life and Fate, 2011; Gaito Gazdanov. The Way to the Light, 2015; OXXY, 2017; Zyklus 2217, 2019; Beyond the White, 2021.
Germany, 2022, colour, 90 min.
Director: Evgeny Kalachikhin
Three villages combined in one timeless space – somewhere beyond the polar circle. On the Kola peninsula in Northern Russia, a few dozen people still live in their traditional timber houses surrounded by water, forests and sand. Nature provides for them, mainly the White sea, but fish populations have been dwindling over the years. Fewer and fewer people want to stay; many move to the city, leaving behind their homes. Over time these houses turn into spectres from the past, ownerless and lonely ruins that only spring back to life by playing grandchildren, visiting their grandparents over the summer. The hamlets Tetrino, Chavanga and Kuzomen seem to head toward the fate of so many other villages all over Russia: a slow but inevitable extinction. Cut off from vital infrastructure, almost forgotten by regional governance, these people have to keep together to cope with their everyday struggle. And when a mass fire breaks out, threatening to ravage the entire peninsula, they have to fight their last stand.