Kseniya ELYAN
Ксения ЕЛЯН
Ksenia ELIAN
Russia / Estonia, 2018, 72mn 
documentary
Khoziayn oleney
▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

Хозяин оленей

 

 How Big is the Galaxy ?

 Le Maître des rennes

 
Directed by : Kseniya ELYAN (Ксения ЕЛЯН)
Cinematography : Kseniya ELYAN (Ксения ЕЛЯН)
Editing : Kseniya ELYAN (Ксения ЕЛЯН), Yevgeniya OSTANINA (Евгения ОСТАНИНА)
Produced by : Mariya GAVRILOVA (Мария ГАВРИЛОВА), Aleksandr RASTORGUYEV (Александр РАСТОРГУЕВ), Maks TUULA (Макс ТУУЛА)
Companies : Marx Film
 
Site : IMDb

Awards :
First prize International Documentary Film Festival "Flahertiana", Perm (Russia), 2019

Plot synopsis
Zakhar lives among the vast Arctic spaces of Siberia, 100 miles away from human dwellings. He is 7, but he has his own reindeer and tundra for pasture. One day his nomad family is joined by a teacher, sent by the authorities to explain to the kids why they need math and Putin. The teacher is supposed to give them a standard set of knowledge, but Zakhar craves answers to millions of questions about the world.
http://eng.flahertiana.ru/
 

commentaries
LA BOURSE DU PREMIER FILM DU FESTIVAL CINÉMATERRE 2019 A ÉTÉ ATTRIBUÉE À KSENIA ELYAN PAR [N.A !] PROJECT pour son film Le Maître des rennes / How Big is the Galaxy ?, pressnut.com, 2019
 
The Zharkov family—father, mother and two young sons—belong to the Dolgan community, one of the last indigenous peoples pursuing their traditional nomadic life in the extreme north of Siberia. The children used to be sent to boarding school, where they became estranged from their family and culture, but nowadays they can get homeschooling from teachers assigned to them by the Russian authorities. Seven-year-old Zakhar and his older brother Prokopy are the protagonists in this calm, observational film. Zakhar’s first year of schooling is with Nelly, a young but serious teacher. She tells him about President Putin and the importance of mathematics, and he learns classical poems by heart. Zakhar is an inquisitive and intelligent boy. Each day, he has a hundred new questions about the world, and he's surprised to discover that his teacher doesn’t have all the answers. These scenes take place against a backdrop of the vast, snow-covered tundra and observations of the Dolgans’ everyday activities—herding reindeer and fishing are their principal livelihoods. https://www.idfa.nl/en/film/e7e0f1bd-0685-456d-8923-fc847559e4b8/how-big-is-the-galaxy

Selected in the following festivals or events :
- International Millenium Festival, Brussels (Belgium), 2019
- Russian Film Week in Paris : Regards de Russie, Paris (France), 2019
- Honfleur Russian Film Festival, Honfleur (France), 2019
- Festival of Central and Eastern Film , Wiesbaden (Germany), 2019
- Verzio International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, Budapest (Hungary), 2019
- DOKer. Moscow International Documentary Film Festival, Moscow (Russia), 2019
- Message to Man : International Short, Documentary and Animated Film Festival, St Petersburg (Russia), 2019
- International Documentary Film Festival "Flahertiana", Perm (Russia), 2019
- Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival : IDFA, Amsterdam (Netherlands), 2018