Karabash

“Karabash” is a half-hour poetic documentary about Russian mono town Karabash, located in the Urals. This town is often called the most polluted place on Earth by mass media, and although this title is not officially confirmed, two centuries of copper mining has had a substantial influence on local ecology, transforming the woods and hills into a Mars-like landscape.

The main force in town is the copper-smelting plant, which is both the primary source of employment and environmental pollution. The documentary reviews Karabash through the eyes of Volodya, a young factory worker, who tells us what it feels like to live in a place where nothing ever changes.

 


 
 

About the film

Idea of this documentary was born from the multimedia project of webzine Batenka.ru about Russian mono towns. Karabash is often referred to in the media as "the most polluted place in the world". It became the second town of the series where Batenka.ru sent an expedition, other cities were Kondopoga, Baikalsk, Budennovsk, Vyksa and Vyatskiye Polyany. Ilya Komarov was hired as a cameraman for that trip. Visual expressiveness of the city turned out to be so rich and vivid that it became clear: it was necessary to tell the story of Karabash in movie format.

"Karabash" became the directorial debut of Komarov. He graduated from Cinematography faculty of VGIK, learning from such masters as Igor Klebanov and Mikhail Agranovich. After that, Komarov worked on short films, music videos and commercials as a cameraman. Ilya performed a significant part of the camera work in Karabash as well. His co-author there was famous Russian photographer and cameraman Pavel Samokhvalov, who contributed to major Russian magazines and taught students at the British Higher School of Design (BHSD). Komarov and Samokhvalov visited Karabash three times, talking to and filming local residents, work processes at the plant and environmental consequences of its activities.

However, Karabash turned out to be more complicated than just a town on the brink of ecological catastrophe with Martian-like landscapes. Film crew got a rare opportunity to access the territory of the plant, communicated a lot with its administration and workers. Despite the obvious environmental impact of copper production, the residents in general were tending to be positive-thinking: equipment was being modernized, level of well- being was slowly growing, and over the past 20 years environmental agenda had ceased to be so acute. Thus, it became clear that "Karabash" is not a documentary about ecological disaster, but primarily a reflection on the frozen state of a place, which get used to any circumstances and even resists change.

The main representative of this point of view is a character named Volodya. He is a twenty-year-old factory worker who spends his spare time in the universe of Warhammer 40,000 game and, according to his own words, hates any change. Volodya belongs to the first generation that grew under Putin’s regime. He does not remember and does not know any other times, and he’s okay with that. Volodya considers this quote to be his motto: "In the sinister darkness of the distant future, there is only war." Can life get worse? Yes, of course it can. Are changes for the better even possible? Most of the residents of Karabash, with whom the film crew spoke, have no such reflection.

In recent years, Karabash has become a boogeyman town: mass media are attracted by its bright and screaming visuals, which leads to accordingly flashy headlines. But “Karabash” is not a film about a specific place or time. This is a contemplative study of collective image of the Russian outback. From one town to another, we meet similar holidays, similar sets of songs in karaoke, similar post-Soviet scenery with recognizable eclecticism. Karabash is a unique town, where autumn comes in June, and vegetation was regularly burned by acid emissions yet not so many years ago. Karabash is similar to tens and hundreds of towns scattered throughout Russia and stuck out of time and space.

Electronic musician and media artist Zurkas Tepla wrote original soundtrack for the film. The premiere of the film trailer took place at Strelka Film Festival by Okko Film Festival in July 2019. The film has been approved for main competition program of ArtDocFest 2019. The wide premiere of "Karabash" is scheduled for 2020.