Awarding The Grand Prize to Pugalo (2020) – a Yakut movie – the jury of the Sochi Open Russian Festival admitted that some of the members are unfamiliar with the Yakut cinema in general. This seems as if the talking was about another country and not the largest area with the most extreme environment in Russian Federation. Self-sufficient Sakha cinema is shot in similar modes of economy and limitation, which do not limit the idea and plot but only develop artistic solutions.

by Albina Akhatova

00/11/2021

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Isolation

Being the hugest administrative unit by area, Yakutia has a low population density, which does not reach even a million as of 2021. India, a state of the same size, is home to two billion people. But this, of course, is understandable: the climate of India is much more comfortable and adapted for life, and the historical and political path is quite different.

Sakha is also the name of the indigenous people of Yakutia of Turkic origin. It is important to note that the name "Yakuts" was given to these people by the founders of the Far North – as well as the name of the region, which, by the way, in Russian toponymy is written as "the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)". The great distance from Moscow and the western part of Russia has allowed these people to form separately, without the influence of Russian or European culture, and to preserve this primordial spirit. Doctor of Cultural Studies Dmitry Zamyatin notes that the Yakuts are isolated not only from the Russian regions, but also from their own language family. However, this only strengthened the national identity of the Sakha, formed at the junction of the Turkic-Mongolian bloodlines, while other Turkic ethnic groups, such as Tatars, Bashkirs or Chuvash, have significantly assimilated with the prevailing Russians by culture-mixed marriages, changing of religion, indifference towards their native language and customs.

Conrad "Connie" Brean: What did television ever do to you?
Winifred Ames (presidential aide): It destroyed the electoral process!

I haven't played the Colonel as a sociopath. On the contrary, I began to reflect what made him for what he is. And I decided that there must be something of a little broken child in he.
– Jonny Depp

The commitment to one's own nature – in every sense, to its laws and unity with it – is reflected in Sakha cinema. This is facilitated by the pagan origins of beliefs, nature, and cultural separation. The humanism of the plots, multiplied by the national flavor and mixed with modesty. Humble and pristine. And most importantly – frankness and understanding of art as self-expression and utterance.