The film will be screened on Thursday, March 25 at 8:30pm as part of the Ex Oriente Film's Open Programme. Click here for more details.
HUNTERS SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME
Italy, Switzerland, Russia 2008, 87 min
Director, Photography and Camera: Carlos Casas / Music and Sound: Sebastian Escofet / Editor: Felipe Guerrero Production: Fabrica, RTSI / Executive Producer: Federico Jolli
Along the coast of the Bering Sea, a community of whale hunters are struggling to survive keeping alive a millenary tradition. Surviving one of the most extreme environments of the planet. The film follows the life of the last whale hunters of Siberia, their ability to survive using archaic hunting techniques forced by International Commissions.
The film is divided in two parts: winter and summer, Focusing on their everyday hunting procedures, the film wants to transport the spectator to a scenario where one of ancient hunting traditions still exist. From fish to seal to whale, we see the food chain of a whale hunter, their lifestyles, we witness the remains of a millenary whale hunting tradition that is dissapearing. Survival in these desolate lands depends only on their hunting rituals. I wanted the film to be a sort of action hunting film, without much dialogue, a pure cinematic and visual experience.
The film is part of The End trilogy (2002-2008) of documentary films dedicated the most extreme environments on the planet: Patagonia - Solitude at the End of the World; Aral Sea - Aral: Fishing in an Invisible Sea; Siberia - Hunters Since the Beginning of Time.
Aral - Fishing in an Invisible Sea
Uzbekistan, Italy 2004, 52 min
Co-directed with Saodat Ismailova
In Aral - Fishing in an Invisible Sea, struggling communities of fishermen ponder their future as the rusty skeletons of freight ships by the virtually dried-up Aral Sea are dismantled and reused, and an old man recalls more prosperous times, Soviet damage, and clings to a hope of a better future.
Solitude at the End of the World
Argentina, Italy 2005, 52 min
Co-directed with Fernando Zuber
In Solitude at the End of the World, the remoteness and vastness of Tierra del Fuego is warded off by the astounding intimacy with which three protagonists let us briefly into their worlds.
For more on the films by Carlos Casas, please visit www.carloscasas.net.