Piblokto

The film was born as a result of our long-term interest and research into the traditions of the North, shamanism and folk collective unconscious. One of the directors of the film, Anastasia Shubina, an anthropologist and philosopher, has been studying Eastern culture and shamanism since 2016, and our last documentary “The art of falling apart” was dedicated to reindeer shamans in the North of Mongolia. Through cinema, we explore the cultural traditions of indigenous peoples who, despite being part of Russia (as they were colonized in the past by the Russian Empire and then the USSR), retain their cultural identity and their own patterns of thinking.

The main cultural event for the Chukchi and Eskimos has traditionally been a shamanic ritual, an event of symbolic death, during which the animal and human spirits tear his body apart and eat him. It is believed that this initiation gives the shaman control over the spirits, and for the people of his community, it is an entry into the cycle of life and death, where the dead and spirits are part of reality.

In our film, we used the sound of a shamanic ritual that we recorded during the expedition. It became not only the soundtrack, but we also structured our film according to the rhythm of the ritual. Its dramaturgy is based on repetitions and cycles and reflects the rhythm of life and the mythological stories of the Northern peoples. The life of the Chukchi and Eskimos is strongly connected with the cycles of nature, repeats itself day by day, and revolves around the sea hunting for big marine animals: whales and walruses.

People living in Inchoun and Uelen villages, on the coast of the Arctic Ocean, are in complete isolation from the rest of the world. Food is brought to their stores by ship once a year, and sea hunting is the only way to survive. For them, hunting and killing animals is just a routine, necessary to get enough food.

The film title “Piblokto” (Arctic hysteria) is a disease that affects people in the Far North, similar in its manifestations to shamanism. A person sings in non-existent languages, repeats the same actions, and can perform aggressive, seemingly meaningless actions. (From the point of view of an external observer, this is similar to the behavior of a shaman during a trance).

However, the phenomenon of “Piblokto” is controversial. On the one hand, it reflects cultural events unique to the North and its traditions. On the other hand, the term “Piblokto” (despite the seemingly authentic sound) does not exist in the Eskimo or Chukchi language and was invented by external onlookers. Moreover, the indigenous people themselves do not always consider this condition a disease. In the film, we tried to keep a sense of this ambiguity

While filming, we spent several months in the remote villages of Chukotka, next to the Bering Strait, in the summer of 2020. For us, this film is an opportunity to touch the otherness, trying not to impose our own patterns of thinking on their lives, to allow the rhythm and atmosphere of the film to be born from the people's inner lives and their own cultural practices.