Siberian villager Roman and city boy Kymm venture into the vast
Yakutian wilderness, hunting for a rare reindeer, while cloning-scientist
Semyon hunts for mammoth remains. Their quests drive them far North
and eventually down into the melting permafrost. Ancient bones rise up from the ground and
wild animals seem to have disappeared.
In the midst of an ongoing mass-extinction of fauna and flora, of a Siberian
Ivory Rush, and at the dawn of de-extinction, a contemporary myth unfolds.
While Roman, Kyym and Semyon close in on their goals, both the frozen earth
that they walk on and reality itself melt into another state.
Holgut boldly combines elements of fiction and documentary and
manoeuvres effortlessly from captivating reality to visual poetry. Down the
mammoth-hole, science fiction seems to become reality and reality seems to
become myth.
Director's statement:
Climate change and the 6th mass extinction are upon us: temperatures and water levels are rising, land is crumbling and species are going extinct at a rapid rate. Holgut stems from these tragic events and from the defining human influence lying within. How to survive and grasp this incredibly fast-changing world, one that often seems to be heading for doom?
We are part of the natural world. When we lose parts of this world, we lose parts of our self. Our stories get punctured, they become incomplete and we can get lost. The mammoth’s tale of extinction reveals a fascinating narrative that unravels over millennia and has an ending still unknown. At the fortnight of the mammoth’s rebirth, I wonder how we will look back at this critical moment hundreds of years from now.
Source/images: Flanders Image
