Shaman

Dimitri, a violinist raised in the city, escapes from a labour camp in Siberia. The escape was planned with Toli, who works beside him; when a herd of Yakut horses grazes nearby the two of them get onto the animals and ride off. But Toli is badly wounded, and before he dies he tells Dimitri that he is a shaman and hands him an amulet for protection. From then on the young man has to keep clear of the guards and learn to live in this country alone, with his horse. The film shows nature not as an obstacle to be beaten but as something to be joined. Bartabas’s hundred minute production was shot in the wide Siberian landscape and completed in 1996.