Severny Svet

Northern Light

Die letzten Sonnenstrahlen des Herbstes fallen auf die karelische Kleinstadt Sumskoy Posad tausend Kilometer von Sankt Petersburg entfernt. Nur durch einen kaum erkennbaren, verschlammten Weg ist die Stadt am Weißen Meer mit dem Rest des Landes verbunden. Die hier Ansässigen leben in einer scheinbar zeitlosen und mysteriösen Dimension der arktischen Dunkelheit. Dies ist das Russland der endlosen Wälder und Kartoffelfelder. Ein paar robuste und kompromisslose Charaktere arbeiten still ohne wirkliche Notwendigkeit nebeneinander her; rundherum nur die prachtvolle, Furcht einflößende Landschaft.

Just before winter cloaks everything in the Arctic night, a few hours of daylight linger in late autumn in the village of Sumskoy Posad, one thousand kilometers north of Saint Petersburg, in Karelia, on the shores of the White Sea. Linked to the rest of the country by a vague muddy track and a stretch of railway line, the village lives in a suspended and mysterious dimension. This is the Russia of endless forests and potato fields. A few robust and uncompromising characters work calmly there, driven by no vital needs. This is a still happy and cold Russia.

Director's Biography

Sergei Loznitsa was born 1964 in Belarus and grew up in the Ukraine. Graduated from the Russian State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow in 1997. He has been making documentary films since 1996 and has received numerous national and international awards. In 2010 Loznitsa’s feature debut MY JOY premiered in the main competition at the Festival de Cannes followed by IN THE FOG in 2012 and MAIDAN in 2014. SEGODNYA MY POSTROIM DOM (Today We Are Going To Build A House, co-directed by Marat Magambetov, 1996, short doc), ZHIZN, OSEN (Life, Autumn, co-directed by Marat Magambetov, 1998, short doc), POLUSTANOK (The Train Stop, 2000, short doc), POSELENIJE (The Settlement, 2001, doc), PORTRET (Portrait, 2002, short doc), PEYZAZH (Landscape, 2003, doc), FABRIKA (Factory, 2004, short doc), BLOKADA (Blockade, 2005, doc), ARTEL (2006, short doc), SEVERNY SVET (Northern Light, 2008, doc), PREDSTAVLENYE (Revue, 2009, doc), SCHASTYE MOE (My Joy, 2010), V TUMANE (In The Fog, 2012; CE '13), O MILAGRE DE SANTO ANTÓNIO (The Miracle of Saint Anthony, 2012, short doc), PISMO (The Letter, 2012, short doc), REFLECTIONS. DIRECTOR'S CUT (2014, short doc), MAIDAN (2014, doc), THE OLD JEWISH CEMETERY (2014, short doc)