Trailer
Piblokto
2023, 38 min, Documentary, experimental.
Directors, Cinematographers: Anastasia Shubina, Timofey Glinin
Producer: Timofey Glinin
Co-producers: Ilya Fomin, Gregory Bagaev
Sound: Ilya Dunaev
Colorist: Grigory Karapetyan
Synopsys
On the Arctic Ocean coast of Chukotka live a people cut off from the world. Their life revolves around hunting walruses and whales and protecting villages from bears coming from the tundra. This theme turns the film into a reflection on death. Marine animals become the primary source of food for the people, animal leftovers are used to feed arctic foxes on a fur farm, human cemeteries become targets for bears. It appears that all the inhabitants of this region are involved in the cycle of food and death. The film departs from the typical rhythmic structure of cinema and instead adopts the structure of a shamanic ritual, which is a meaning-forming event for the northern peoples.
Film History
Piblokto premiered at the 45th Cinéma du Réel, one of the world’s most prestigious documentary film festivals held at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, where it received an award. Its UK premiere followed at Sheffield DocFest, another leading international festival. Since then, the film has been screened at more than 60 festivals worldwide, receiving 18 prizes, and has been acquired for the permanent collections of major institutions including the Musée du Quai Branly — Jacques Chirac (Paris, France), the Hokkaido Museum of Northern Peoples (Japan), the Stendhal Museum (Grenoble, France), and the Swiss Anthropological Association (SAA) in Switzerland. The film is represented internationally by the French distributor ADAV.
Film festivals & Awards
- 45th Cinéma du réel — Festival international du film documentaire, Competition, Paris, World Premiere. March 25, 2023. “Prix des détenues” AWARD
- Sheffield DocFest — Sheffield International Documentary Festival, Official selection 2023, Sheffield, UK, UK premiere. 16 May 2023.
- Family Film Project, Portugal, 2024, Grand Jury Prize
- International Film Festival “The World of Knowledge”, Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation, October 7, 2023, National competition, GRAND PRIX
- 72. Trento Film Festival 2024, Trento, Italy, May 1, 2024, Italian premiere, International competition, Student Award, Special Mention
- Somerville International Film Festival, USA, 2024, Best Short Documentary Film AWARD
- Asti International Film Festival, Italy, 2024, Best International Film AWARD
- 2024 — 11th International Documentary Festival of Ierapetra, Greece, Best Short Documentary AWARD
- Ghent Viewpoint Documentary Film Festival, Belgium, 2024, Best Documentary Short film AWARD
- Beat Film Festival, international documentary festival, National competition 2023, Moscow, Russia, Russian Premiere. V-A-C foundation AWARD
- DokuBaku International Documentary Film Festival, Baku, Azerbaijan, September 26, 2023, Best Short Documentary AWARD
- Festival Cinemistica, Granada, Spain, November 20, 2023, Best Anthropological Film AWARD
- Rencontres Cinéma-Nature, France, 2024, Best Documentary film AWARD
- Festival des Courts en hiver, Porto-Vecchio, France, January 25, 2024, Audience Award
- Doc.London Documentary Film Festival, London, United Kingdom, March 27, 2024, London premiere, Best Connecting Cultures Film AWARD
- Short documentary film festival “Bistre Reke” (Clear Rivers), Belgrade, Serbia, July 20, 2024, Best Director AWARD
- Post-Cinema Film Festival, Portugal, 2025, Honorable mention
- Cannes International Film Week, France, 2025, Connecting Cultures Award
- National award 'Laurel Branch', shortlisted for the Best Debut.
- National award 'Dziga Vertov Prize', shortlisted for the Best Debut.
- Musée du quai Branly — Jacques Chirac, Paris, France, Screening at 28 May 2023. The film is part of the museum’s collection
- Hokkaido Museum of Northern Peoples, Japan, The film is part of the museum’s collection
- Stendhal Museum, Grenoble, France. The film is part of the museum’s collection
- Swiss Anthropological Association (SAA), Switzerland. The film is part of the museum’s collection
- AegeanDocs International Film FestivalNorth Aegean Islands, Greece, October 17, 2023, Official Selection.
- Apricot Tree International Documentary Film Festival, Debet, Armenia, August 20, 2023, Short film competition
- Saratov Sufferings Documentary Drama Film Festival, Saratov, Russian Federation, September 9, 2023, International competition
- CorsicaDoc International Documentary Film Festival, Ajaccio, France, October 13, 2023, New talents competition
- DocuWest Documentary Film Festival, Denver, United States, October 20, 2023, American Premiere, Official selection
- Mostra Internacional de Cinema Documental ‘Mares da Fin do Mundo’ — Documentary Film Festival, La Coruña, Spain, November 1, 2023, International competition
- Etnovideografica — International Ethnovideographic Festival, Zamora, Spain, November 9, 2023, International competition
- FIFMA — Festival International du Film de Montagne d’Autrans, Autrans, France, November 30, 2023, International Competition
- SiberiaDOC International Film Festival, Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation, December 5, 2023, International competition
- Tokyo Documentary Film Festival, Tokyo, Japan, December 14, 2023, Visual anthropology and Ethnographic film Competition
- Ethnofest — Athens Ethnographic Film Festival, Athens, Greece, December 3, 2023, Official selection
- International Folklore Film Festival, Kerala, India, January 7, 2024, Official selection
- Chennai International Documentary and Short Film Festival, Chennai, India, February 20, 2024, Official selection
- Film and Folklore Festival, Chaguanas, Trinidad and Tobago, March 1, 2024, Official selection
- Artdocfest, Riga, Latvia, March 7, 2024, Open Competition
- International Film Festival “Fishermen of the world”, Lorient, France, March 20, 2024, International competition
- 71st Martovski Film Festival, Belgrade, Serbia, March 29, 2024, Serbian premiere, International competition
- Ethnografilm Paris, Paris, France, April 1, 2024, Official selection
- Ecozine Film Festival, Zagaragoza, Spain, April 5, 2024, Official selection
- Festival International des Films Identitaires et Solidaires, Nikki, Benin, April 27, 2024, Official selection
- The Quebec International Ethnographic Film Festival, Montreal, Canada, May 10, 2024, Canadian premiere, Official selection
- IndieLisboa — International Film Festival, Lisbon, Portugal, May 25, 2024, Portuguese premiere, Competition
- Images en Bibliothèques / Mois du doc, Paris, France
- California Capital International Documentary Film Festival, 2025, USA.
- Babul Eco Film Festival, 2025, India.
- Cine Pobre Film Festival, 2025, Mexico
- “Monti, Montagne, Montanari” Festival, 2025 Italy.
Director’s Statement
This film grew out of our long-term interest in the North, shamanism, and the collective unconscious. Co-director Anastasia Shubina, an anthropologist and philosopher, has studied Eastern cultures and shamanism since 2016. Through cinema, we explore how indigenous peoples, despite centuries of colonization by the Russian Empire and USSR, preserve their identity and distinct ways of thinking.
For the Chukchi and Eskimos, the central cultural event has been the shamanic ritual of symbolic death, when spirits tear apart the shaman’s body, granting him power and affirming the cycle of life and death for the community. In our film, the sound of a ritual we recorded became both soundtrack and structural rhythm, shaping a dramaturgy of cycles and repetition that reflects Northern cosmologies and daily life, tied to nature and sea hunting for whales and walruses.
We filmed in the remote Arctic villages of Inchoun and Uelen, where people live in near-total isolation: supplies arrive only once a year by ship, and sea hunting remains essential for survival. For them, killing animals is not spectacle but necessity.
The title Piblokto (“Arctic hysteria”) refers to a phenomenon often compared to shamanism: people sing in non-existent languages or perform trance-like gestures. Yet the word was coined by outsiders and does not exist in Chukchi or Eskimo languages; locals may not even see it as illness. We wanted to preserve this ambiguity. For us, the film is a way to encounter otherness—resisting external interpretation, letting rhythm and atmosphere emerge from people’s inner lives and cultural practices.
— Anastasia Shubina, Timofey Glinin
The film is part of museum collections
- Musée du quai Branly — Jacques Chirac, Paris, France, Screening at 28 May 2023. The film is part of the museum’s collection
- Hokkaido Museum of Northern Peoples, Japan, The film is part of the museum’s collection
- Stendhal Museum, Grenoble, France. The film is part of the museum’s collection
- Swiss Anthropological Association (SAA), Switzerland. The film is part of the museum’s collection
- Distributor for educational institutions and museums — ADAV (Association for Audiovisual Distribution)
Piblokto in press:
— Life on the Chukchi Sea coast. A film shot in Chukotka offers a glimpse of one of Russia’s Arctic Indigenous cultures. Meduza Journal.
— Arctic hysteria at the end of the world. How does a village in Chukotka opposite the USA live? (“Арктическая истерия на краю света. Как живет поселок на Чукотке напротив США”). Radio France internationale. (In Russian)
— Entretien avec Anastasia Shubina et Timofey Glinin, réalisateurs de Piblokto. Mediapart. (In French)
— Остальную Россию здесь называют “материком”. Чукчи и эскимосы на берегу океана (The rest of Russia is called “mainland” here. Chukchi and Eskimos on the shore of Arctic ocean), Сибирь Реалии. (In Russian)
— Cultural Diary: A Film About Chukotka in Paris (Russian: Культурный дневник: фильм о Чукотке в Париже), Radio Svoboda (Radio Liberty) (In Russian)
Film reviews:
— PIBLOKTO. Review by Cinéma du Réel.
— PIBLOKTO. Review by Sheffield Doc Fest.
— ‘Piblokto’: Fuera de la zona de confort. Criticum. (In Spanish)
— Beyond the Qualities That Money Can Buy: Select Shorts From Cinéma du Réel, In Review Online
— Journal du réel n°4. Piblokto de Timofey Glinin et Anastasia Shubina (Russie, Etats-Unis, 2023). (In French)
Press Quotes:
“Piblokto made a very strong impression on us. Both images and sounds express something that goes beyond mere information, beyond thoughts about death, impacting our ideas about what it means to be in that place, to live that life, in an eloquent way. We were immersed in film for the poetic cinematography and enchanted soundscapes that honor both the northern people and cinema as an art form.”
— Family Film Project, Jury statement
“Piblokto delves into the Chukchi communities in a visceral way, establishing a connection between life and death, between spiritual rituals and vital needs, between humans and nature.”
— Miguel A. Reina, En Primera Fila
“A poetry that bites like the cold and roars like the sea, from where men drag a whale or walrus that will be sliced into pieces.”
— Olivia Cooper-Hadjian, Cinéma du Réel
“The film departs from the conventional rhythmic structure of cinema, constructing itself on the principle of a shamanic ritual — a meaning- making event for the northern peoples.”
— Vitalij Manskij, Meduza
“Faced with sedentary societies clearly oriented towards capitalism, the film’s directors introduce a model that stands out by embodying a term so prevalent in our daily lives: sustainability.”
— Ferran Calvet, Criticum
“This intense and unforgiving film meditates on death and isolation in a way not often seen in cinema. Departing from the conventional rhythmic structure, instead Piblokto is built on the principles of a shamanic ritual, a meaning-forming event for northern peoples”.
— Sheffield DocFest
“It is as if it were a fascinating wild return to the beginnings of the Holocene, to the primal impulses of hunting and the communal balance of humans before nature, fused with their mythology and anthropological cosmogony.”
— Fernando Figueroa.