A SHAMAN’S TALE
A SHAMAN’S TALE
Trailer
It all ended at the border between Buryatia and the Irkutsk region: Gavyshev was arrested by the police. In Yakutsk, placed under house arrest, he broadcast anti-Putin videos and opposition New Year messages and was arrested again, this time with the help of an OMON unit, and taken to a psychiatric hospital. The film-makers, who now live outside the Russian Federation, initially wanted to accompany the shaman on his entire journey for over two years, ultimately they were witness to several arrests. Mikhail Bashkirov staged a play about Gabydhev, performances of which were repeatedly disrupted by "patriots". In an interview, co-director Beata Bubeets compares the shaman to opposition figure Alexei Navalny, who was to die in a prison camp:
“Navalny in his last years seemed like a loner who was fighting the system. Our protagonist is also a loner who fights the system. In this way, I think, they are similar.“ Quote
As such, Gabyshev foresaw the fate that was to befall Russia:
„The film had been in post-production while we were still in Russia. The shaman predicted that he had to reach Putin in 2021, because otherwise there would be a catastrophe not only for Russia but for the whole world. Principal filming wrapped in early 2020, but we realised we had to wait. We were editing the film and discussing it with the producers. The producers suggested releasing the film in 2020, when it became clear that the shaman would not be allowed to go [to Moscow], but we understood that the story was not finished: the drama had already been defined by the shaman himself, and we would have to wait until 2022. The events that followed affected how I saw the story; I started to look at it differently, if we’re talking about the mystical aspects. The shaman had been right: he was talking about war. He was saying that there would be a physical war, not a spiritual war, if he wasn’t allowed to reach Moscow. It’s amazing that somehow he knew all the dates.]“ (Dmitry Volchek, “He wanted to exorcise the demon from the Kremlin: a film about the Siberian shaman,” Radio Svoboda, 15 April 2024 Quote
Text: Bernd Buder
07.11.2024 | 10:30 | Obenkino (original version with English subtitles)
08.11.2024 | 13:00 | Kammerbühne (original version with English subtitles + simultaneous translation into German)
Beata Bubenets, Mikhail Bashkirov
Beata Bubenets & Michail Bashkirov, Zosya Rodkevich, Daniil Rodiaonov, Vladimir Kopush
Richard Müller, Jan Cenek
Alexander Gabyshev, Jan Plihal, Kino “Peremen”, Mel’nitsa “Volkodav”
Filip Remunda, Tereza Horska, Vit Klusak
Beata Bubenets, Mikhail Bashkirov - Beata (author and director) was born in Yakoutsk and has a métis identity (half Yakut, half Ukrainian). A graduate of the Documentary School of Marina Razbezhkina, she began her career as a director in 2013. Beata filmed the revolution on the Maidan, events in Donbass, and the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. She has also filmed the activity of the Russian opposition and LGBTQ+ community in Russia. Her films have all taken part in international festivals such as IDFA, True / False Film Festival, Zagreb Dox,Brisbane IFF, Artdocfest, Lavr, Open City Doc, Documentary Film Festival in New York etc. She also directed the documentary series Russian Roulette(HBO, 2015) and worked as a camera woman for Welcome to Chechnya (nominated for an Oscar). After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Beata emigrated to Paris in 2022.
Mikhail (author and director) is an anthropologist and screenwriter. He specialized in the indigenous communities of the North and Siberia and shamanism. Mikhail is the author of dozens of scientific publications and alaureate of the French national program PAUSE. He currently works at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University. As a screenwriter, he has participated in several projects in the field of Yakutian cinematography.
