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.
Burning (2021)
Follows the deadly Australian bushfires of 2019-2020, known as ‘Black Summer’. Burning is an exploration of what happened as told from the perspective of victims of the fires, activists and scientists.
Rasputin: Murder in the Tsar's Court (2016)
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.
Fireline (2023)
Enter the spectacle and drama of a Megafire, alongside firefighting teams struggling to save anything they can while protecting each other; revealing the friendship, heartbreak, and exhilaration of going to war against an elemental force.
Rebuilding Paradise (2020)
On November 8, 2018, a spark flew in the Sierra Nevada foothills, igniting the most destructive wildfire in California history and decimating the town of Paradise. Unfolding during the year after the fire, this is the story of the Paradise community as they begin to rebuild their lives.
Target... Earth? (1980)
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.
Braguino (2017)
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 (2008)
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.
Siberian Love (2017)
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.
Living with Wildfire (2018)
For 100 years, we have waged war on wildfire in the United States, and ironically, have created a more volatile landscape than ever.
Beyond the White (2021)
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.
I Don't Believe in Anarchy (2014)
The film details the early years of the legendary Siberian Punk/Rock group 'Гражданская Оборона' (Grazhdanskaya Oborona), and its frontman, Egor Letov.
Happy People: A Year in the Taiga (2010)
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.
The Strait Guys (2022)
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.
The First Rain (2025)
A record in 35mm film of the first drenching rain on Los Angeles after the devastation of the wildfires.
Mammoth Hunter (2005)
Since the ban on elephant hunting, Russia has had a monopoly on the ivory trade. But this ivory comes from mammoths, whose tusks, skeletons and sometimes frozen bodies are regularly found in the frozen ground of Siberia. According to estimates by some scientists, it could contain the remains of several million mammoths! eternal ice. Their goal: to discover the frozen remains of mammoths trapped in the permafrost. Using derisory means, they dig the frozen ground from which they extract bones, teeth, skulls... and above all, precious mammoth tusks. Ivory - the white gold of the tundra - will sell for over $50 a kilo. A total market appears at $2.5 million, with hubs in Moscow and Hong Kong.
A Glorious Way to Die (NaN)
This was made for National Geographic and shows how Russians made their own rafts out of scrounged parts and then ran unbelievable whitewater. Starring the famous Bublik!
Au Nord De L'Hiver (1993)
A cold odyssey over more than 8,000 km through contrasting territories, from the mountains of Mongolia to Lake Baikal, from the taiga to the Siberian tondra: this is the challenge that Nicolas Vanier has set himself. The adventure will last 18 months, 18 months during which Nicolas and his team face one of the most hostile regions of the globe before reaching the Arctic ice. An exceptional route, where only traditional modes of transport are used to overcome the constraints, each time different, of the regions crossed...
Burnt Earth (2025)
As wildfires rage ever more fiercely across Europe, Finnish and Portuguese firefighters join forces on the front lines. This visually stunning documentary takes viewers into the flames and shows humanity's struggle against nature's most destructive force.
Northern Travelogues (2019)
In 1917 Finnish explorer Sakari Pälsi travelled to Northeastern Siberia carrying a cinematograph and 13,000 feet of film with him. The journey produced a unique documentary film and a travelogue. A hundred years later director Kira Jääskeläinen returns to the Bering Strait in Pälsi's footsteps. Combining old and new film footage, Pälsi's notes and the stories of the local indigenous peoples, the film highlights the story of the Chukchi and Siberian Eskimos from bygone days till today.