The Producers

Aleksei Vakhrushev - Director//Writer

Aleksei Vakhrushev was born in Anadyr (Chukotka) in 1969. He graduated from All Russian Cinematography Institute in 1996, where he studied Direction. One of his works, The Tundra Book (2011), received the prestigious NIKE award of the Russian Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for “Best Documentary of the Year” and was screened at numerous festivals around the world, including Hot Docs, Vision du Reel, the Asia-Pacific Screen Awards, and more. Aleksei has been a member of the Russian Academy of Science’s since the early 2000s. For five incredible years, he and his crew produced a Russian National Geographic series for the Russian Channel 1. Since 2009, he has been at the helm of his own production company, High Latitudes, Ltd., which continues to focus on the indigenous peoples of the North.

Making The Film

Director's Statement

The history of the indigenous people of Chukotka over the last hundred years is one of alienation from their roots. Our film is about overcoming this alienation, weaving together two storylines and techniques: Documentary and Clay Animation, the reality of traditional sea hunters and ancient Myth, which is still alive in their modernity and fills it with eternal power. I am firmly convinced that the preservation of cultural identity and spiritual heritage is one of the most important issues of Humanity.