Northern Travelogues

The White Reindeer(hu)

Imagine one of the most remote wildernesses in the world. Granddaughter Masha and Vladimir, the protagonists of this story from Central Siberia try the impossible to keep their nomadic traditions alive.

Siberian Love(ru)

After 20 years of living in Berlin, the director Olga Delane goes back to her roots in a small Siberian village, where she is confronted with traditional views of relationships, life and love. The man is the master in the home; the woman’s task is to beget children and take care of the household (and everything else, too). Siberian Love provides unrivaled insights into the (love) life of a Siberian village and seeks the truth around the universal value of traditional relationships.

Tawai: A Voice from the Forest(en)

Explorer Bruce Parry visits nomadic tribes in Borneo and the Amazon in hope to better understand humanity's changing relationship with the world around us.

The Legend of Tayos(es)

A Hungarian explorer claims to have discovered a "Gold Library" inside a cave. Lacking evidence, he tries to get the recognition he believes he deserves but struggles to get support from the local governments and religious leaders.

Braguino(ru)

In the middle of the Siberian taiga, 450 miles from the nearest village, live two families : the Braguines and the Kilines. Not a single road leads there. A long trip on the Ienissei River, first by boat, then by helicopter, is the only way to reach Braguino. Self-sufficient, both families live there according to their own rules and principles. In the middle of the village: a barrier. The two families refuse to speak. In the river sits an island, where another community is being built : that of the children. Free, unpredictable, wild. Stemming from the fear of the other, that of wild beasts, and the joy procured by the immensity of the forest, unravels a cruel tale in which tensions and fear give shape to the geography of an ancestral conflict.

Big Bang in Tunguska(de)

At 7:14 am on 30 June 1908, the largest explosion recorded in human history to date reverberated throughout our planet. The force of the explosion was two thousand times that of the Hiroshima bomb. A woodland area the size of Luxembourg was eradicated in the Siberian taiga. This incident is recorded in history books as the Tunguska catastrophe. To this day, internationally renowned scientists of various disciplines argue about the causes of this disastrous explosion. The documentary discusses the latest and most controversial insights of these leading scientists. It identifies the reasons why Tunguska has evolved into a phenomenon and points out the curious results produced by this mythical event in culture and economy.

Paradise(ru)

In 2021, an extreme heatwave gave rise to huge wildfires in the vast subarctic forests of Sakha, a northeastern republic in Siberia. The village of Shologon lies in this taiga landscape, shrouded in orange smoke and black ash. The forest is burning and the flames are approaching fast.

Atrabilis(en)

Target... Earth?(en)

Really strange documentary of Wheeler Dixon production quality on the Tunguska Event and the possibility of it happening again causing an apocalypse (basically a meteor scare film) sprinkled with UFO conspiracy kooks, and other 'professionals', riddled with stock footage of all kinds, freaky moog music and sound fx, a Dr. Who rip-off end theme, Victor Buono as Homer the Archivist, a philosophical history recorder in a space ship with a HAL 9000 type talking computer named Ino, there's also another space ship with Egyptian looking aliens girls with pasties and see-thru blouses.

Rasputin: Murder in the Tsar's Court(de)

St. Petersburg, Russia, December 30th, 1916. Grigori Rasputin is assassinated. The story of the humble peasant who became the most influential adviser to czarina Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of the last czar, Nicholas II Romanov.

Aku-Aku(en)

Documentary following the 1955–1956 Norwegian Archaeological Expedition's investigations of Polynesian history and culture at Easter Island.

The Bounty Hunter of Mongolia(fr)

In the Darhat valley in northern Mongolia, the horses of nomadic tribes are stolen by bandits who then sell them to Russian slaughterhouses. Shukhert, a brave horseman, relentlessly pursues them through the Mongolian taiga, bordering Siberia.

I Don't Believe in Anarchy(ru)

The film details the early years of the legendary Siberian Punk/Rock group 'Гражданская Оборона' (Grazhdanskaya Oborona), and its frontman, Egor Letov.

Beyond the White(en)

In Northern Russia, a few dozen people still live in their traditional houses surrounded by water, stone, and sand. Cut off from vital infrastructure, almost forgotten by regional governance, these people have to cope with their everyday struggles.

Phantoms of the Sierra Madre(en)

A Danish writer travels to Mexico with the purpose of locating a mysterious Apache tribe that fervently seeks to remain in obscurity.

Happy People: A Year in the Taiga(en)

In the center of the story is the life of the indigenous people of the village Bakhtia at the river Yenisei in the Siberian Taiga. The camera follows the protagonists in the village over a period of a year. The natives, whose daily routines have barely changed over the last centuries, keep living their lives according to their own cultural traditions.

Eastern Memories(fi)

At the turn of the 19th and 20th century Finnish philologist G. J. Ramstedt travelled around Mongolia and Central-Asia. In this documentary Ramstedt’s memoirs are heard in the modern day setting, where tradition is replaced with hunger for money, and deserts give way to cities.

Mawson: Life and Death in Antarctica(en)

The Douglas Mawson Antarctic Expedition of 1912 is considered one of the most amazing feats of endurance of all time. Although his two companions perished, Douglas Mawson survived, but how? In a bold historical experiment, scientist and adventurer Tim Jarvis is retracing the gruelling experience, with the same meagre rations, primitive clothing and equipment to uncover what happened to Mawson physically — and mentally — as a man hanging on the precipice of life and death.

Peyote to LSD: A Psychedelic Odyssey(en)

Plant Explorer Richard Evans Schultes was a real life Indiana Jones whose discoveries of hallucinogenic plants laid the foundation for the psychedelic sixties. Now in this two hour History Channel TV Special, his former student Wade Davis, follows in his footsteps to experience the discoveries that Schultes brought to the western world. Shot around the planet, from Canada to the Amazon, we experience rarely seen native hallucinogenic ceremonies and find out the true events leading up to the Psychedelic Sixties. Featuring author/adventurer Wade Davis ("Serpent and the Rainbow"), Dr. Andrew Weil, the Grateful Dead's Bob Weir and many others, this program tells the story of the discovery of peyote, magic mushrooms and beyond: one man's little known quest to classify the Plants of the Gods. Richard Evans Schultes revolutionized science and spawned another revolution he never imagined.

The Strait Guys(en)

THE STRAIT GUYS follows Czech-born mining engineer, George, and his fast-talking protégé, Scott, along the proposed route of the InterContinental Railway through Alaska, to the Bering Strait and onward to Russia. The “Strait Guys” endeavor to convince international governments, corporations, and indigenous tribes to green-light their $100 billion railway project, which would provide ground-based infrastructure across the continents, relieve overcrowded Pacific ports, improve global supply chains, and ease tensions between the superpowers. The US and Russia have been successfully collaborating in space for decades. Now the Strait Guys are out to prove it is also possible down here on earth.