At first, I think that...
the first thing that came...
I watched a TV documentary
about Lorino.
This is the village in Chukotka.
And when I watched it I understood
that I should shoot something there.
I don't know what,
but this place is so fantastic
that I got love in it,
I felt love in this place.
And I had no story,
and I spent a few years thinking:
'What story could work there?'
Like, I understood that I don't want
to shoot some kind of ethnic film
or a story that is about
traditional whale hunting
or something like that.
And a few years later
I thought about a story:
falling in love with a webcam model.
And I understood that this
could be the place.
Because Internet came to this village
not that long ago,
and for teenagers, for kids,
it's such an important event.
It's maybe one of the main things
that is happening in the village,
that the boys have a chance
to look at girls
who live so far away,
and for them it becomes
not only a fun thing
but their main romantic time.
Just...
After that, I spent a few years on
writing a script.
I didn't know
what the special local things
in Chukotka were
because I'd never been there.
It was my personal feelings about it.
And I tried to speak
about my childhood
and even I wasn't in
such remote places
but I think there are
universal feelings
among teenagers, of being lonely
and being sad
and trying to find your own place
and, you know,
all the feelings of first love.
It connects everybody
and I think that's why
you can understand this character
because we all understand about
what the film is.
So, this story is
not about Russia, Chukotka,
or something like that.
And for me, the place wasn't...
I didn't think it looked like Russia.
It looks, to me,
like a special place.
That's why it's not
a part of local Russian things.
It's a story that could be clear
to everybody.
We were allowed to shoot a real hunt.
Like, one guy with a camera.
And all the scenes are documentaries.
So, for me, it was a big challenge
because it is a very powerful
and a very cruel thing.
It is the real way of life,
but I never thought that it would be
so emotional for me.
And...
I think I've never seen
anything like it.
It is so powerful.
The way people live
and they depend on food
and they are against
this great creature.
A whale is so beautiful
and it is such a unique animal.
We don't know
that many facts about it.
About the way it communicates
with other whales.
This whale singing,
it is so beautiful.
It is like a great, beautiful alien.
And the fact is that
people are hunting
and or in the same way,
for Chukchis,
whales are sacred beasts.
It is like a holy spirit.
And they all live
in connection with nature.
And the whale, for them, is food.
And, in the same way, it is, for them
a main friend who help them to live
how they think.
That spirits give them whales
and they don't just kill them.
It is, for them, a way of
communicating with their gods
as a traditional thing.
But now, of course, it is modern times
and people are living far away
from their traditional culture
and you can only feel
what is inside with a people.
And I think they feel strongly
about hunting.
It is very important for them.
So, it was, for me, very interesting
just to make it a part of a film.
But in the beginning
we had a lot of scenes.
We shot a lot of whale hunting
but in the end I understood that
it should be one small part
of the film.
And it should be more about
the feeling of a character
and not just about
showing something interesting,
or exotic.
Everybody who had only a synopsis
or the idea of a film,
everybody thinks, 'Oh, this will be
this hard film about the hard life
of Russian people far north,
it will be depressive,
it will be heavy,'
but I felt that it is a story
of a first love.
It couldn't be realistic, depressive
and, you know, because it's not
the thing that I want to show.
And it is much easier for me
to make a festival film
about people who are drinking,
everything is bad in Russia...
But, you know, we live in such places,
but when you are a child
you don't see these colours.
It is, for them, for the boys,
a great place.
They don't want another place to live
because, for them, it is happiness.
It is riding on motorcycles
and listening to the music
and talking about girls.
And it is not like...
I think it is the way the character
sees his own place.
Of course, we had a lot of chances
to show another side of Chukotka.
But we didn't want that because
I think the story is much more...
For me, it's much more a fairy tale
than the story of a hard Russian life.
I want people to enjoy this place,
not to think, like,
'Oh, how are these inhabitants
of the far north living?'
I want you to feel
that these are your friends,
but not like exotic.
Like Indians living
in hard conditions.
It's very funny because
when you're standing in this place,
on this island between two,
there is a line that changes the day.
Yeah, really, so in this part
of Chukotka it is one day,
but if you cross the line
it will be the day before.
Yeah? And like when...
I, at first, wanted to show
that they're speaking about
this changing of date,
but when this guy said,
"Russia is the future,"
I thought, 'It's a strange thing.'
And, like...
As if I'm trying to say that Russia
is our future, but of course not.
I like that it sounds strange.
I like that everybody's asking
why he's saying that,
but it is a real fact
that the date changes.
And at first I wanted America
to be the future
because, for the character,
this is the future,
but this guy who performed the scene
said, "No, it's not true.
There is the past."
I said, "OK," and I like that
nobody understands what I'm saying,
but maybe it is a new matter
for a character, yeah?
Because he is returning to his home
and this is the future for him.
I think that your own place...
We're often seeking happiness
very far away
but it could be near.
Yeah, but we never feel this
if we don't try to escape.
It is a typical problem with teenagers
hating their own place
and trying to run away.
And I think that this is...
This is very natural to
this character, trying to escape.
And it is very natural
that he is feeling,
at the end,
happy that he's back home
where his friends and family are.
And I think that is
a part of our life.
We, like... As I often think
that I hate my country
and I hate politicians and things
and I hate my President
and I hate my government
and I want to leave
and find a good place,
but when I go to other countries
I often understand that
I want to go home.
I don't know why,
this is my country, I love it.
I love my family,
I love my friends.
And I love the way this country is.
I cannot... I hate and I love.
It is the same.
You know, I can never explain, myself,
how I found him
because I think it was mystical luck.
Because I never thought
that I would find such a guy
because I understood that
I need to shoot a real guy,
not an actor, not an actor.
At first, the chance was very small.
Everybody said,
"How will you find him?"
If you find him, he will be
the one boy in 10,000 boys
who can perform like that.
But, I don't know, I found this guy,
like, two friends.
They lived in the same place.
It was an orphanage house in Anadyr,
the capital of Chukotka,
and their origins were from
small villages in Chukotka.
And then I spoke with these boys.
I understood that they were
very, very close to the characters
but, of course,
when I started to shoot,
I realised they didn't fit
the characters,
they are the characters,
not my script.
I forgot about my script because
they were much more interesting
than I could imagine.
Like, and...
It was very hard to work with them,
of course, because it is a very...
very difficult way to work
with teenagers,
but I tried, we tried,
our team tried to find this way
to communicate with them
and I think we became friends
by the end.
Really, I felt that at the beginning
I had a lot of references
and they didn't work at all.
I just tried to shoot this film
more, you know, beautifully,
more cinematographically.
But the way it worked,
it was a very simple way of shooting.
I think that this film is about
very naive guys
and I tried to shoot it
like a very naive camera.
You know, so...
Maybe things that reflected on me
a lot are Werner Herzog films.
And not only his films,
but his thoughts and his ideas
because it was so hard
to shoot this film
that one day I decided
that I needed to ask for help.
And I went to the only place
that had Internet
and I connected to the Wi-Fi
and downloaded Werner Herzog's book
and read how he survived
shooting his very,
very difficult films.
But when I read it,
I understood that
he had a much more difficult process
and he was staying and he was
finding something interesting in it
and something unique.
And I felt the same, that these
are not difficult conditions.
I think these are great conditions
for the film,
that you don't understand
what will happen next.
I feel like when I dreamed about
what would happen with my film,
I'd fall asleep
and then see some scenes
from the festivals and then I wake up
and understand that nothing happens.
I think that I'm now dreaming
because this quarantine time
and there's no festivals
and the best future for the film
is some VOD platforms
and that is now a real event
with real screenings
and I see the people
who are discussing the film.
I think I never dreamed
this would be such a thing.
So, I think that's great luck
and I'm trying not to think about it
because it is so confusing,
thinking how I am lucky now
to be here.
